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ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE | 

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FOR i8 T2; 



A BEE-KEEPER'S YEAR-BOOK, 



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t !). L. Aelair. Editor. . . rlawesville. Ky. M 



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With Communications from the 



BEST AMERICAN APIARIANS ANO NATURALISTS. 



LOUISVILLE. IECY- 

rRIKTEJD BY JOHX P. MOMTOX ANU COMPANY 

1872. 



ra 



THE ONL Y AMERICAN TEXT-BOOK OF ENTOMOLOGY. \ ^ 

A 6UI0E TO THE STUOY OF INSECTS; 

BEING A POPULAR 

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF ENTOMOLOGY. 

By A. S. PACKARD, Jr., M. D. 

Third Edition. 

Containing over 700 Octavo Pages, with Fifteen Plates and 670 
Wood-cuts, containing 1,250 Figures. 

Price, $5.00, in full Green, Brown, Claret or Black Muslin Binding. 

Published at the Naturalist's Book Agency, Salem, Mass. For sale at 
the principal book-stores. Trade supplied on liberal terms. 



ITALIAN BEES, 

IMPORTED ^ZLSTID HOME-BRED 

HMend for Circular. E# J. PECK, Lllldeil, N. J. 

JSPig^ Use Automatic Bee- Feeders. Is^fi 

A "NEW DEPARTURE" IN BEE-KEEPING. 

We have a novelty to offer the public in « Mrs. FARNAM'S Non- 
Swarming Attachment," which can be applied to any form of hive, 
even the old box hive or "gum," and without interfering with the labors of 
the workers, operates as a perfect non-swarmer. It is also a perfect Drone- 
catcher, effectually confining drones to any hive when it is not wished to 
have them in the air. 

Price of sample Non-Swarmer, $1.50; per half-dozen. $8.00; per dozen, 
or hundred, each, $1.00. 

Apply to ITALIAN BEE COMPANY, Des Moines, Iowa. 

iTALiA-iisr QUiEiEiisrs 

OF BEST STOCK, 
Tested both by their Worker and Queen Progeny. 

A few imported Queens for sale early; and new importations to be 
received in June. For terms apply to 

ITALIAN BEE COMPANY, Des Moines, Iowa. 



THE ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



THE GENESIS OF THE HONEY-BEE. 

BY D. L. ADAIR. 

The Animal Kingdom is divided by naturalists into two grand 
divisions; viz., Vertebrates, or such as have a back-bone or spine, 
of which man is the most perfect type; and Articulates a term, 
which Cuvier selected as descriptive of their peculiar formation 
of segments, joints, or rings, as all of them can be reduced to a 
simple, typical figure, that of a cylinder divided into numerous 
segments. Entomologists divide the latter into three classes, 
viz.: 1. Worms, or such as consist of a long cylindrical sac, com- 
posed of an indefinite number of rings, all nearly alike, without 
any appearance of subdivisions into regions; 2. Crustaceans, or 
such as are composed of a determinate number of rings, which 
are grouped together in two regions, the head and abdomen, or 
anterior and posterior, of which the crab, lobster, and shrimp are 
examples. The third and highest class consists of Insects, or such 
as have their bodies subdivided into three distinct regions — the 
head, thorax, and abdomen ; each region provided with a distinct 
set of organs, having distinct functions. The insect is placed at 
the head of articulate animals., 

Insects are divided (Packard) into three orders ; the lowest the 
Myriapods, or such as have cylindrical worm-like bodies, with 
segments not distinctly grouped into regions, except in the re- 
cently, hatched young; the centipedes are an example. The 
next or intermediate order, the Arachnidse, which includes the 
spiders, having only two distinct regions, are wingless, and have 
four pairs of legs. The third or highest order, the Hexapods, or 
six-footed insects, generally have two pairs of wings, and the seg- 
ments grouped into three distinct regions. 

1 



1 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

The hexapods are divided by Agassiz and Packard into seven 
suborders, at the head of which they place Hymenoptera, which 
culminates in Apis, the honey-bee. 

Dr. Packard (Guide to the Study of Insects) says: "In the un- 
usual differentiation of the individual into males and females, and 
generally sterile workers, with a further dimorphism of these 
three sexual forms, such as Huber has noticed in the humble-bee, 
and a consequent subdivision of labor among them; in dwelling 
in large colonies, thus involving new and intricate relations with 
other insects ; their wonderful instincts; their living principally 
on the sweets and pollen of flowers, and not being essentially 
carnivorous (J. e., seizing their prey like the tiger -beetle) in their 
habits; and in their relation to man as a domestic animal subser- 
vient to his wants; the bees, and hymenoptera in general, possess 
a combination of characters which are not found existing in any 
other suborder of insects, and which rank them first and highest 
in the insect series." 

All insects have their origin in the ovaries of the mother, in 
the egg or its equivalent, and pass through certain transformations 
or metamorphoses ; and as they have an important bearing on 
many of the operations necessary to successful bee culture, and 
those peculiar to the honey-bee are but imperfectly understood 
even by naturalists, we propose to give, in short, a sketch of those 
transformations as they take place in the worker-bee; and if we 
differ in some respects from naturalists of recognized eminence, 
we do so because our own observations as a practical apiculturist 
for seventeen years we consider justifies it, and because we consider 
that a proper understanding of the subject will correct many erro- 
neous practices in bee culture. 

The egg of the honey-bee consists of, first, a shell, or, as natu- 
ralists call it, chorion; second, of a thin membrane or lining called 
the vitteline membrane or yelk envelope. These inclose, third, 
albumen ; fourth, an oil which forms the yelk ; and fifth, the germ 
or embryo, which is the animal, whether male germs are added to 
it or not. It is a vitalized bud, as much so as its analogue in the 
plant or tree, the product of animal reproduction, fertilization 
only changing the sex. The egg is dej)osited by the queen in the 
cells of the comb. 

When the vital principle is excited to action by the proper 
degree of heat the embryo absorbs its stored food, which develops 
organs and appendages to prepare it for its second stage, and at 



ANNALS OP BEE CULTURE. 3 

the end of about three days, under favorable conditions, if a 
proper temperature is maintained in the hive, it bursts open 
the shell and emerges in the form of a minute worm, and is then 
called a larva. 

In this second stage it has no resemblance to the perfect bee. 
It has a mouth; its only organs being the organs of nutrition, 
which are very simple, being nothing but a straight tube ending 
in a blind sac, or bag, having no outlet; as it lives on liquid food 
perfectly adapted to all its wants, all of which is digested and 
appropriated, and no residuum left to be excreted, as is the case 
with the larvce of many insects. 

From the time it leaves the egg it feeds voraciously on the 
whitish fluid which is deposited in the cell by the nursing bees 
so plentifully that it floats in at first, from which fact it is but 
reasonable to suppose that it absorbs its nourishment as well as 
feeds upon it. From a worm without any rings it soon grows 
into an articulated animal, and fills the cell in four to six days, 
when it is sealed up by the nursing bees with a cover placed over 
the mouth of the cell. In the course of thirty-six hours the larva 
spins around itself a silken cocoon, which lines the cell, and enters 
its third stage, which is called its pupa state. 

This second metamorphosis finds it entirely changed in form, 
and from a worm composed of simple rings it is transformed into 
an insect with its three divisions of head, thorax, and abdomen. 
Its internal organs undergo as great a change; but, as during this 
stage no food is taken nor excrement discharged, its stomach has 
no outlet posteriorly, only the rudiments of the anal outlet being 
formed. 

Dr. Packard, quoting from Weismann, says: "Acconrpanying 
this change in the integuments there is a destruction of all the 
larval system of organs; this is either total or effected by the 
gradual destruction of tissues." 

After the worker-bee pupa has reached its twenty-first day, 
counting from the laying of the egg, it has perfected its form and 
enters on its fourth or imago stage, when it cuts away the cap of 
the cell that imprisons it and issues forth to mingle with the 
crowd in the hive. It is then considered by entomologists as a 
perfect insect, but it is evidently not so. 

Dzierzon stated, as the result of his observation, that the 
worker-bees attended to the domestic concerns of the colony 
during the early period of their lives. The introduction of the 



4 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

Italian bee enabled Dr. DonhofT to make such observations as 
confirmed the correctness of this opinion. His experiments, as 
detailed by himself, are given in "Langstroth on the Hive and 
Honey-bee," page 194, but are too long to be quoted here. ILy 
own observations confirm Dr. Donhoff's, and I think establish 
the following as facts : 

1. The honey-bee is not a perfect insect when it attains its 
imago or so-called perfect state. 

2. The worker-bee passes through a fourth stage before its 
organs are perfected, which I call its adolescent state, which ordi- 
narily extends over a period equal to the whole time required for 
all the other transformations, and extraordinarily, or during a 
period of rest or hibernation, over an indefinite period. 

3. During the first three days of adolescence it does not eat at 
all, its alimentary organs not being perfected. For from three 
days to a week after that it only eats bee-bread; it then begins to 
eat honey sparingly. Up to this time it evacuates no excrement, 
and it is but reasonable to suppose that the anal tube is imperfect. 
It continues to feed on the same kind of food that nourished it in 
its larval state, while the adult bee is never known to eat it. 

4. The adolescent and the adult bee perform entirely different 
offices in the labors of the hive. From the food used by the former 
is secreted the wax with which they build their comb-structure. 
It is doubtful whether the adult bee is capable of producing wax 
at all. The young bee also builds the cells and feeds and nurses 
the brood. Huber noticed that a certain class of bees, which he 
called nourrices or petites abeilles, fed the larvse, and supposed that 
the wax-makers were a different class, which he called cirieres. 
He distinguished them by their size, not suspecting that the latter 
were distended with the food they eat to produce the wax secre- 
tions. He also confounded the adult bee with the former or petites 
abeilles, they being about the same size, and attributed to them the 
additional office of honey-gathering. 

5. The adolescent bee not only constructs the ordinary worker, 
drone, and store-cells, but when necessary constructs the cells for 
rearing queens, and attends to feeding and nursing them through 
the larval state. The adult bees are incapable of queen rearing. 

6. The adult or perfect bee only gathers stores and proiDolis. 
So far as I have been able to see, it does nothing else. 

These being facts, I conceive that they can only be accounted 
for upon the hypothesis that an additional transformation of the 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 5 

internal organs takes place in the adolescent bee during its semi- 
adult state, and incidentally from the food taken the wax is se- 
creted ; or after the stomach has partially digested the food, and 
abstracted such elements as are necessary to its full development, 
the residue, instead of being evacuated as fceces, is fed to the larvce, 
it being exactly suited to their necessities. As soon as the ali- 
mentary organs are perfected it enters its fifth stage and becomes 
an adult, and as such can no longer perform such offices, being 
physically incapacitated. 

The period of adolescence extends over an indefinite length of 
time, the young bee being required to work over a certain quan- 
tity of food in order to extract from it the necessary amount of 
the peculiar elements necessary to its full development; conse- 
quently during the honey -gathering season, when much brood is 
being fed and much wax produced, its extreme limit does not 
exceed forty days, while the bee emerging from the cell in the 
fall continues in that state until the next spring. 

The experienced bee-keeper will readily see what an impor- 
tant bearing this theory has upon the success of many operations 
necessary in scientific bee culture, as it will explain the cause 
of many failures and mishaps that were before mysterious. 

It will point out the true theory of artificial swarming. A 
swarm made up entirely of old bees are unable to produce a 
queen, and consequently would fail; or in case a queen be given 
them, they would be unable to feed and nurse her brood, and un- 
less comb was given them there would be no place for the queen 
to lay eggs. If composed entirely of young bees, they would be 
in a better condition, provided they were supplied for a while 
with food, as they could construct comb, rear a queen, and nurse 
the brood, and when they reached the adult state, if other young 
bees were produced to take their places, they might prosper, but 
their prosperity depending on so many contingencies, they would 
not so soon become strong as if the proper proportion of each 
class of bees with brood in all stages and a queen were united at 
once. For if there be the proper projDortion of each to begin 
with, we may venture to make the swarm much smaller than 
when any of the requisites are wanting. 

Since the invention of the Melipult, and the discovery that 
much honey is used in generating wax, the greatest want of the 
bee-keeper has been more comb to receive the honey. Many 
plans have been suggested to obtain it, and inventive genius has 



6 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

been called on to supply it artificially, without knowing that in 
every hive of bees where brood is being matured there is a con- 
tinual involuntary production of wax going on, and in every 
hive that has no vacancies for building comb it is being wasted, 
dropped on the bottom and swept out by the bees, or accumulated 
in every crack or crevice it falls into, to become a food and harbor 
for the moth-worm. The wax is lost. Nor is- that the worst of 
it, for adolescence is prolonged and valuable time is lost by de- 
taining in idleness great numbers of infant bees, that were they 
relieved of the accumulating wax as fast as it was ripe would 
sooner reach the adult state and become honey-gatherers. It has 
another bad effect, as it is the ordinary cause of natural swarming. 
The nursing bees prepare more food than there are larvce to feed 
it to in the ordinary quantities. Some of these are supplied 
largely, and from them queen-cells are started, which seems to 
produce disorganization, and instinct impels the bees to migrate 
to a new home, where they can find room to use the accumulated 
wax, in the cells of which the food in the stomachs of the nurses 
can be used to rear another generation. Any one who has noticed 
how rapidly comb is built by a natural swarm can not doubt that 
the bees carry the wax with them from the old hive. 

It will be easily understood under these circumstances that it 
is important that there should always be room in the hive for the 
continual deposit of wax in comb-building, not in boxes of diffi- 
cult access, but in close proximity to the normal cluster, where the 
queen can have access to it, to dej)osit eggs in it, which she will 
do more readily and rapidly in half- furnished cells, and by that 
means allow the nurses to relieve themselves of their loads of 
brood-pap. An extra extent of box-room will not remedy the 
difficulty ; for while it may enable the wax-makers to rid them- 
selves of some of the wax-scales, it gives no extra room for the 
queen and nurses. 

The hive should therefore always contain one or more vacant 
frames, or frames in process of being filled. We may thus secure 
an incredible number of comb-sheets, and to a great extent ob- 
viate the necessity of artificial comb ; the increased activity of the 
adolescent bees will sooner fit them for honey -gathering; the 
queen will be stimulated to lay a greater number of eggs, rapidly 
extending her brood-nest to the new comb, the result of which 
will be an increased strength of bees, and consequently greater 
stores of honey, as long as pasturage continues. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



FERTILIZING QUEENS IN CONFINEMENT. 

BY MRS. E. S. TUPPER, OF DES MOINES, IOWA. 

At the Bee-keepers' Society at Cleveland a member expressed 
utter disbelief in the assertions of many that they had secured 
the fertilization of queens in confinement. He made what no 
doubt appeared to him a most liberal offer of five hundred dollars 
to any one who would go to his apiary and secure the fertilization 
of fifty young queens in confinement. Little notice of it was 
taken. It was received very much in the same spirit as would 
have been an offer of the same sum to any one who would show 
him fifty queens, asserting there were no queens, but the workers 
deposited their eggs ! 

JSTo doubt there were many present who had never succeeded 
themselves in securing the fertilization of queens in confinement; 
but in this age of progress few are willing to say that a thing can 
not be done because they never did it or saw it done. It must be 
evident that no one could afford to leave his own apiary in the 
busiest season to try experiments for others, or teach them how 
to do what they have failed in doing. We do not think Gen. 
Adair, L. C. Waite, Dr. Mitchell, or any other of the successful 
ones in this matter will be likely to jump at this offer; but we do 
hope they will all be able to give in these annals and other peri- 
odicals such reports of success in this important matter, with 
methods of securing the end, so simplified that even the novice 
can control the mating of the queen without trouble. 

In the summer of 1870 I failed in many of my first attempts, 
as I now know, because I did not secure in the cages I then used 
sufficient warmth. After the season advanced, and warm, dry 
weather came on, my failures were few. I succeeded with twenty- 
seven queens, more than nine tenths of the times I attempted it. 
During the past season I did not in a single instance fail when I 
tried. I used the cage of my own making at first, but afterward 
received a fertilizing cage from G-en. Adair, which was much more 
easily managed. Under proper conditions of warmth, and age 
of both drone and queen, the failures need be very few when this 
cage is used. I also succeeded with the wire dish -cover, as used 
so successfully by L. C. Waite. My long illness during the latter 
part of the season interrupted my experiments. 



8 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

In October I found a number of young queens hatching in 
colonies, from which an assistant had removed the queens. I 
removed several of these to small hives, and to one of these at- 
tached one of Mrs. Farnam's non-swarming attachments. The 
young queen was fertilized in the box of this, and four times 
afterward I succeeded in having queens fertilized in this box. 
Though not recommended by the inventor for this purpose, I am 
sure they will be valuable for it, as neither drones nor queen have 
to be caught when this is used, but fly naturally from the hive. It 
will be easy for a novice to try it. It also possesses the advantage 
of being out in the sun and air. 

In conclusion, let me say that there remains for me no doubt 
that it is only necessary to have the queen and drone of ripe age, 
and the cage favorably situated as to warmth, to insure success in 
every trial. Not only is the process very important where black 
bees are near our Italians, but it gives us great advantage io 
crossing different stocks, and in the selection of the best drones, 
instead of leaving the matter to chance. 



THE EGYPTIAN BEE. 

BY M. BALSA MO CRIVELLI, OF ITALY. 

Translated from "La Culture" published in Paris, France, for the "Annals of 
Bee Culture," by C. P. Dadant, of Hamilton, Illinois. 

Those who now practice bee culture in Egypt are the tribes of 
the Fellahs and of the Coptes. The Bedouins who inhabit the 
border of the desert do not occupy themselves with this branch 
of agriculture. Bees are kept in boxes or in pots ; these pots are 
closed at the end as soon as the bees are hived in them. They 
also use cylinders made of mud taken out of the Nile. Those 
cylinders are fifteen inches in diameter by three feet in length, 
having the same capacity as a large Dzierzon hive ; the sides 
are three inches thick, and the ends are closed with disks made 
out of the same material, one of them having a small opening for 
the entrance of the bees. These cylinders are generally piled 
up like drain pipes. The straw hive seems to be unknown in 
Egypt. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 9 

The bees find their principal nourishment on clover (trifolium 
alexandrinum). The largest part of the plants and trees bloom 
in the month of March. In the gardens bees gather honey and 
pollen from sunflower (helianthus), cucumber, melon, onion, bean, 
etc. In the country of Eei the crops are gathered in May, and 
after that time large tracts of land remain dry and gloomy. The 
country of Sharaki, being irrigated, gives three crops during the 
year. There the bees can gather honey during the greater part 
of the year. Acacia blooms as late as October. 

In upper Egypt, swarming takes place in February and lasts 
until the middle of March. 

To force the swarms to build straight and in a parallel with 
the disk which is used in place of a door, they fasten some old 
combs to a piece of wood and fasten this inside of the hive. The 
combs are then constructed in the upper part and near the guide. 
They can be easily extracted by cutting them loose at the top. 
We might almost say that the Arabs are acquainted with movable 
combs. All the combs that the bees build are parallel to the one 
introduced. By this process the management of the cylinder is 
greatly facilitated. The Fellahs are not so ignorant in bee culture 
as one might think at first. 

In Egypt the principal enemies of the bees are wasps and 
hornets. The hornets attack the bees in front of their hives, 
when they return from the fields ; they even enter the hives to 
get the honey. The wasps do not kill the bees but they rob them. 
At a certain time of the year a man has to stand in the apiary to 
watch the hives and drive away the hornets, for the latter would 
rob and take away all the honey. The bees can not control a 
hornet so as to be able to sting it, and when robbing is begun 
it is difficult to stop it. In Egypt, to operate on bees and gather 
honey, they do not use any means of defense, and they handle 
them with naked face and hands. 



EXTERIOR APPEARANCE OP THE EGYPTIAN BEE. 

The Egyptian colonies, like our common black bees, are com- 
posed of three kinds of bees : drones, queen or mother-bee, and 
workers. 

The workers cf the Egyptian race have the first two rings of 
the abdomen marked with a reddish yellow or orange color, and 
the third ring half yellow and half black, like Italian bees. But 



10 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

while the Italian bee has the first two rings entirely yellow, the 
Egyptian bee has a black line on each of these rings. Besides, it 
differs from the Italian bee in the color of the thorax, which is 
entirely yellow ; the ends of the jaws and the forehead are of a 
rusty red. The body is covered with a whitish coat of hairs. On 
each side of the head these hairs are of a dark brown, and white 
in the center. 

The Egyptian bee, seen from behind, seems to shine, on account 
of these white hairs. When on the wing it seems to be covered 
with flour. A practiced eye can follow it easily and recognize it 
among Italian bees. The difference in size is very noticeable. 
The Egyptian bee is smaller and more active than the Italian or 
the black bee. 

The Egyptian drones have the first two rings of the abdomen 
of a reddish yellow, and the third of a lighter color. They re- 
semble the most beautiful Italian drones; but they differ from 
them in the brightness of their thorax, so that they look quite 
different from the former when on the wing. The Egyptian 
drones are smaller than the Italian and German drones. They 
are also less weighty. 

The Egyptian queen differs widely from the Italian queen. 
The first abdominal rings of the former are of a reddish yellow 
color, and on a few of the nicest queens they seem to be spotted 
with blood. A bright black line extends on each of these rings, 
and becomes broader and broader toward the end of the abdomen. 
The thorax is of a brownish gray color, and is covered with 
hairs. 

The wings of the Egyptian bees are smaller than those of the 
other races. The noise produced by them when on the wing is 
higher in pitch than that of any known bee, and their buzzing 
is so extremely soft that any bee-keeper, even a novice, can 
recognize the buzzing of the Egyptian bee from the other two 
kinds. The buzzing of the drones is also softer. One might say 
that the song of the Egyptian bee is soprano, while that of the 
Italian or common bee is bass. 

The cells of the Egyptian bees are similar to those of the 
Italian bees in material, form, and position, but they differ in 
size. The worker-cells are visibly smaller than those of the 
other two races. Ten cells of Egyptian bees occupy the same 
space as nine of the others. The depth of the cells is also some- 
what smaller. If the same distance was put between their 



ANNALS OP BEE CULTURE. 11 

frames as between the combs of the Italians they would build 
combs between the frames. 

Fourteen Egyptian drone-cells are equivalent in length to ten 
Italian drone-cells. The queen-cells are smaller in the same pro- 
portion. One thing is particularly remarkable. It is that the 
Egyptian bees build very thin queen-cells, and do not strengthen 
them at all until the queens are born. Another peculiarity is 
that the Egyptian bees construct a great many royal cells and 
accumulate them in groups. As many as thirty-five queen -cells 
have been found on a piece of comb eight inches square. 

The Egyptian bees when united with Italian or black bees 
accept them willingly, and vice versa. These three different kinds 
of bees live in peace in the same hive, and it is an agreeable sight 
to see the little white Egyptian bee flying together with the 
Italian and the black bees. 

Although the cells of our bees are larger than those of the 
Egyptian, it has been proved by experience that these little bees 
do not hesitate to deposit eggs in them ; but the difference in size 
induces them to err, and they deposit drone eggs in them, but 
after a while they begin to lay worker eggs. It is also proven 
that the Egyptian queens do not begin to lay forty-eight hours 
after impregnation like the queens of the other races, but they 
wait five or six days. 

When introducing brood combs of common bees in Egyptian 
hives the bee-keeper should choose the oldest combs, because the 
cells are narrower on account of the cocoons that have been left 
in them by the bees when hatching. These old cells differ but 
very little in size from the Egyptian cells. 

It is impossible to introduce combs of Egyptian bees in common 
or Italian hives to re-enforce them. The following experience was 
made on this subject. 

An Italian colony was deprived of its queen, and the brood was 
removed to be replaced with Egyptian brood. But the colony 
raised no queen-cells, and allowed all the young brood to starve. 
The bees sealed, however, all the cells of all the brood that had 
received a sufficient quantity of jelly. The reason of this fact is 
easy to understand. We must not conclude that there is an aver- 
sion between the races, but simply that the Italian or the common 
bees can not reach the bottom of the Egyptian cell on account of 
its narrowness. 



12 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

An Italian colony was again furnished with Egyptian brood, 
of which the cells were not finished, but containing eggs. The 
bees fed the young larvce and constructed some supplementary 
cells, but to finish the cells the bees were obliged to widen them 
on all sides so that each cell had the form of an hexagonal funnel. 

The Egyptian workers have a great tendency to lay. In an 
orphan colony where brood is wanting laying workers will be 
found after a few days. In a population composed of the three 
races of bees, the little white bees are the ones that furnish the 
laying workers if the mother fails. This fact has no practical 
value; it proves, however, in favor of the prolificness of the 
Egyptian bee. 

The honey-bee is the most laborious of all animals ; the most 
eager to gather supplies for future wants ; it is therefore given as 
a model of domestic economy. It is always at work, either at 
home or in the fields. There is a difference, however, between 
the Egyptian and the other kinds, when the harvest begins or 
when it ends. 

The Egyptian bees rush out like a whirlwind. They are so 
light that they leave the Italians and the common bees far behind. 
The warm climate from which they originate has a great influence 
on their activity. 

The industry of the Egyptian bee is sufiiciently proven by the 
quantity of honey that it gathers. When coming back from the 
field with a full stomach the first rings of its abdomen are almost 
transparent. The pellets of pollen that they transport do not 
differ in size from those of our bees. 

They do not use any propolis to cover the inside of their 
hives or to strengthen the comb. In the Egyptian hives made 
of dirt there is no propolis to be found. In Germany it has been 
ascertained that they do not gather any propolis. They use 
wax in the place of it for all purposes. In this they differ from 
our bees. 

The Egyptian bees are mild in character. Bees of all kinds, 
and wasps, hornets, or ants, are provided with a sting. The 
insects generally called stingless bees, like the melipones and 
the trigones, are not bees, and have nothing in common with 
bees except the instinct of gathering honey and the faculty of 
producing wax. 

Varieties of bees differ from one another not only in color 
and size but also in gentleness. The Egyptians are mild in 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 13 

character, like the Italians. They sting only when irritated. 
When the air is warm and the temperature almost suffocating one 
can stand very close to the entrance of their hive and observe 
them without being attacked. If they are irritated either by 
striking on the hive or by making quick motions around them, 
they will draw their sting, and it is with them as with the Italians — 
to fly up to the enemy and sting him is all one. The sting causes 
pain and swelling, but the inflammation is inconsiderable ; prob- 
ably on account of the small size of the sting, and of the small 
quantity of poison absorbed in the wound. 

The Egyptian bee when attacked defends itself against robbers, 
flies up to them and grasps them in such a way that they can not 
get rid of it. The Italians also can defend themselves against 
robbers, but the Egyptian bees have a great advantage over them 
on account of their activity. 

When bees are in quest of honey they will take it wherever 
they can find it, and the instinct of hunting for it in the flowers 
soon induces them to steal it. Dzierzon wrote with justness that 
creatures deprived of reason, like bees, could not have a better 
morality. For bees to gather honey is to take it wherever it 
can be found. All races of bees have a tendency to rob. This 
tendency is eminently developed in the Egyptian bees. They, 
like the other races, destroy the drones at the end of the honey- 
harvest; and at that time the swarming fever ceases. 

According to Vogel, from whom the substance of this article 
is taken, it is easy to keep this race pure ; for the Egyptian 
queens, being smaller than the others, will choose drones be- 
longing to their race ; they can distinguish them easily by the 
peculiar noise of their wings. 

The same writer observes that an Egyptian queen, impregnated 
by an Italian drone, can not get rid of the sexual organs of the 
drone on account of their large size, and perishes after this im- 
pregnation. 

The German author writes at length on this race of bees, and 
on several other varieties that could be had from Egypt. But 
these questions being of secondary importance, I will here close 
this notice. 



The Turks have as a saying, "You can't sweeten your mouth 
by saying 'Honey!' " 



14 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

A FEW HINTS AND EXPERIENCES. 

BY REV. W. F. CLARKE, GUELPH, ONT. 

Though only one "Novice" writes for the "Annals," it may 
fairly be presumed that many " novices" read that useful publi- 
cation, and for such especially this contribution to its pages is 
meant. 

Many persons who have been induced to purchase movable- 
frame bee-hives, and put bees into them, use them just as they 
would the old-fashioned box or gum hives, and then complain 
that they have thrown away their money. JSTow this is very 
absurd. Of what advantage is an improved hive if the very 
improvement of which it consists is made no use of? The chief 
intent and value of a movable-frame hive is to give access to a 
colony of bees, and enable the bee-keeper to control and regulate 
its internal economy. But there are those who, having bought 
such a hive and put a swarm into it, have never ventured to open 
it, or to do anything more with it than they would with a box or 
gum. Yery likely the bees, left to themselves, have built their 
combs " criss-cross ," and fixed things "fast in fate," so that the 
hive is to all intents and purposes converted into the commonest 
of box hives. Then indeed is the money thrown away, or worse, 
inasmuch as the negligent customer vents all sorts of maledic- 
tions on improved hives and their improvers, hastily proclaiming 
all "humbugs" together. 

A few plain words with you, Mr. Stupid. It is you who are 
the humbug. What would you think of the farmer who should 
buy a mower or reaper, and for want of knowing how to use it 
proclaim it an imposition, and persist in swinging the old back- 
breaking scythe or cradle? A million farmers ride proudly erect 
through meadows and grain -fields where of old they toiled and 
broiled, bearing the heat and burden of the day, while yonder fool 
still swings the scythe or cradle, though here lies in the barn-yard 
a labor-saving machine on which he has wasted his money, and 
which he can not use for want of knowing how. That fool is you. 
Read up on the nature and habits of bees; learn how to handle 
and manage them; find out what a movable-frame hive is for, and 
use it accordingly. 

Without a doubt, fear of getting stung keeps many persons 
from meddling with their bees. Only here and there one has the 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 15 

philosophy of that Indian who, when he swallowed a spoonful of 
mustard out of curiosity, forgot the pain and stanched his tears 
by thinking of his brave forefathers. A bee-sting is no joke 
when it maddens the blood into fiery inflammation, blinds the 
eyes, and swells the head as large as two. Besides, do we not now 
and then read of bee-stings causing death? It is undeniable that 
bees have an affinity for some persons and an unconquerable aver- 
sion to others. It is our misfortune to be hated of bees. Most 
faithfully have we fulfilled the Bible injunction, "love your ene- 
mies," and often have we labored to "overcome evil with good," 
but without avail. Bees are heathen insects anyhow. If you 
let them swarm naturally, they will do it for the most part on 
Sundays, and if the bee-master is a minister, contrive to sting him 
in the face, so that either he can not go into the pulpit or is made 
to look ridiculous there. Science is more efficacious than gospel 
in dealing with bees. A little smoke, a bee-veil, and gloves are 
better than. Christian doctrine or Christian spirit for apiarian 
purposes. It is the ambition of many bee-keepers to be able to 
handle their bees without protection. Some hardly ever get 
stung, and others do n't mind it, being pachydermatous and invul- 
nerable. Must bee-hated people forego the interest and charm of 
an apiary? JSTot when the remedy is so simple, say we. Bees are 
fickle and notional. They have their moods, like verbs and men. 
We have handled ours without protection frequently, and found 
them as amiable as lambs. Again, we have handled them with 
the same gentleness and care, and found them cross as hyenas. 
Finally we have settled down to the pleasant custom of having a 
veil round our hat ready to drop, and gloves at hand ready to put 
on when the angry mood seizes the bees. And we advise all 
bee-keepers with whom the little insects are not in league and in 
love to adopt similar precautions. Gallup, Hosmer, Bohrer, and 
Mitchell (who is Egyptian -bee proof) will laugh at this counsel; 
but we can 't see where the laugh comes in. Once a couple of bee- 
stings on our right hand disabled us from writing for a fortnight — 
a bad predicament for an editor. A friend of ours, Judge M., 
who is an enthusiastic bee-keeper, once tripped his foot when 
among his bees and knocked over a hive. The enraged insects 
came at him like furies. Fortunately the grass was long, and 
there was a large evergreen close by, well furnished to the ground. 
The judge dropped down among the grass, and put his head 
among the foliage of the evergreen, and for four mortal hours, 



16 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

until evening set in, the bees kept him prisoner. When he found 
himself a fixture he improved the time by studying up some law 
cases ; but ever since he has believed in veils and gloves. While 
on this subject let us say a veil of some black material is best. 
Happy is the bee-keeper who can get possession of an old-fash- 
ioned black-lace veil. It is just the thing. For gloves nothing is 
better than the sheepskin gauntlets used in harvestiDg where 
thistles abound. They cost only about fifty cents, and with care 
will last a life-time almost. 

A word about bee-houses. Some of the bee-books, especially the 
English ones, contain very pretty plans of bee-houses, and early 
in our experience they tempted us into building the like. But 
we found them a perfect nuisance. They harbor moth-millers, 
toads, mice, and spiders. The close proximity and similarity of 
the hives confuse the young queens when they return from their 
bridal excursions, and cause loss; the very workers are non- 
plused often, and many a civil war is the result. Bobbing is 
more prevalent when the hives are huddled together, as they 
must be in a bee-house. If a single hive becomes excited from 
any cause, all the adjacent hives quickly sympathize, and the place 
gets to be a perfect pandemonium in no time. Hives should stand 
isolated, at least eight or ten feet apart. It is well to paint them 
of different colors, that each may readily be distinguished. A 
little village of hives, located in a sparsely planted shrubbery, 
where partial shade is given them, looks very pretty, and is much 
better for all practical purposes than the most artistic and archi- 
tectural bee-house ever erected. 

Bee-keepers who use the mel-extractor should provide some 
place inaccessible to the bees in which to work it; otherwise there 
will be more honey extractors in operation than will be pleasant. 
A tent or canvas-house is recommended by some. Our plan is to 
use the winter bee-cellar as a summer honey-room. It is an 
apartment eight by sixteen, built across a wing of the house, 
where from the sloping nature of the ground the sills are four 
feet above the level. Four feet more of excavation gives ample 
head-room. The walls are double-boarded and filled with tan- 
bark and saw-dust. A wire-cloth door at one end and a window 
of the same material at the other give ample ventilation, exclude 
the bees, and the place is a nice, cool room for extracting and 
storing the honey in the summer time, while it is easily fixed up 
for winter quarters. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 17 

We intend, about the first of March, to try the effect of stimu- 
lation on all our stocks by feeding them a la Hosmer. Oh, for a 
fifty-acre linden vrood ! 



APICULTURE IN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGES. 

BY PROF. A. J. COOK, OF THE MICHIGAN AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE. 

It was a satisfaction to us of the Michigan Agricultural 
College, who have thought apiarian science of sufficient impor- 
tance to well merit a place in our curriculum, and who, I believe, 
are pioneers in introducing it into a college course of study, to 
notice the resolution offered by Mr. Cameron, of Washington, at 
the recent meeting of American Apiarists at Cleveland; and also 
to notice its hearty adoption by that most intelligent body, com- 
posed of such persons as Quinby, Clark, Boot, and others. 

It is certainly a suggestive fact that practical apiarists of 
such intelligence should demand for the science of bee-keeping a 
place in our agricultural colleges ; especially as these institutions 
are endowed by the Government for the very purpose of promoting 
knowledge in respect to rural pursuits. ISTo wonder that men 
made purer and better by influences which come from familiarity 
with this wonder of insect life — "the honey-bee" — and whose 
pockets swell with the rapidly accumulating proceeds from their 
marvelous stores, should object to seeing this most profitable 
branch of husbandry ignored by the authorities of these institu- 
tions. 

We think that the adoption of this resolution was most oppor- 
tune, and hope that it will be effective in its object. When we 
reflect that nearly all of our agriculturalists still keep bees under 
the old regime of box hives and no attention, and whose cash 
to balance is more apt to be on the credit than on the debit side 
of the account ; while the few who have made the subject a study, 
using science and other's experience, and giving a generous 
margin to that slight attention necessary, have made regularly 
from one to three hundred per cent, from their capital invested ; 
we feel that no agricultural college ought to neglect this branch 
of instruction. 

Why, it is a fact that all of our farmers who fully understand 
the economy of the hive pronounce "bee-keeping" the most j)rof- 

9 



18 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE, 

itable and least laborious branch of their business ; and it is only 
because of lamentable ignorance on the part of the farming 
community in respect to the "mysteries of bee-keeping" which 
keeps from our national wealth the millions of dollars which, 
with knowledge, will come from the flowers, through the agency 
of the honey-bee. If our farmers only knew that they too, as 
well as Marvin, Hosmer, Grimm, and others, could make their 
thousands annually, and with so little labor, how quickly would 
systematic bee-keeping become prevalent throughout the country; 
and the farmers are all eager for information, but with no teachers : 
many cares, and past box-hive failures, it is slow to come. 

Now right in our agricultural colleges is the place to remedy 
this evil. If all these institutions will send forth yearly a score 
or two of young men, fully taught as to all the improvements of 
bee-keeping, stimulated by a knowledge of its great profits and 
little labor, and qualified for success by having actually handled 
bees in all the varied manipulations of a well conducted apiary ; 
why, have we not here alone leaven that will soon leaven the 
whole lump? and here alone an increase in national wealth that 
will soon repay the amount of endowment by which these insti- 
tutions were created ? 

I have never known students more enthusiastic than in gaining 
knowledge on this very subject. They are most careful not to 
give the go-by to a single idea advanced in the lectures. And 
with such an example as we gave them this past summer, of a 
net profit of over two hundred per cent, on the money invested 
from our college apiary, though experimenting somewhat lessened 
our honey yield, we think they will go forth prepared to stimulate 
the farming communities to that interest in bee culture which 
shall lead to thorough knowledge and consequent success, which 
is sure to follow an intelligent practice of this pursuit, whose 
fascination is only exceeded by its profits. 



Bee culture is in its infancy ; yet there are many persons who 
proclaim perfection. The truth is that there is nothing we know 
all about. Perfection has not been attained in any of the sciences. 
much less in bee culture, that but a few years ago was wrapped in 
mystery and superstition. Of the physiology of the bee we know 
but little except from inference ; of its labors we are just begin- 
ning to learn. We see results, but know little of how they are 
attained. Of diseases we know almost nothing. Yet with all this 
we have obtained great results. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 19 

PARTHENOGENESIS IN BEES. 

BY A. S. PACKARD, JR., M. D., SALEM, MASS. 

Are the drone progeny of an Italian queen fertilized by a black 
drone in any way affected by the cross? My answer to this question 
is drawn from the facts discovered by Dzierzon and Berlepsch, 
the two greatest bee masters in Europe, and confirmed and further 
illustrated by Siebold, the eminent German physiologist and 
anatomist, in his little book on "Parthenogenesis,"* which should 
be in every bee-keeper's hands. And if a perusal of this little 
work would stimulate our more intelligent bee-keepers to study 
and experiment for themselves upon this anomalous mode of 
generation, much more light would be thrown upon the theory 
and practice of bee-keeping. The physiological knowledge needed 
to start with, if from no other source, could be readily obtained 
from any physician. 

The discovery of Dzierzon, that "all eggs which come to maturity 
in the two ovaries of a queen-bee are only of one and the same kind, 
which when they are laid without coming in contact with the male 
semen become developed into male bees, but, on the contrary, when they 
are fertilized by male semen produce female bees," may be taken as 
an axiom. 

It is well known also that worker-bees sometimes lay eggs 
which produce drones ; the workers are incapable of being im- 
pregnated by the drones, the oviduct being imperfect, and the 
seminal capsule adapted for storing up the seminal fluid in the 
queen being small and undeveloped, while the bees themselves 
feel no sexual impulse and take no marriage flight in the air. 

It is also an established fact, I believe, that "a queen may 
acquire the power of laying fertilized eggs for five years by a 
single normally executed copulation." The queen is never im- 
pregnated but once. 

Again, Siebold ascertained that the eggs of the queen when 
passing through the oviduct are impregnated by the male semen 

* On a True Parthenogenesis in Moths and Bees ; a contribution to the History 
of ^Reproduction in Animals. By C. T. E. Von Siebold. London : Van Yoorst. 
This work can be obtained through the American Naturalist's Agency, Salem 

Mass. 



20 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

just when they slip past the opening of the seminal capsule; at 
this time she allows one or more spermatozoa to slip out; these 
immediately work their way into the yelk of the egg through the 
"micropyle," or minute hole in the end of the egg, and then the 
egg is fertilized and the life of the embryo at once begins. The 
orifice of this seminal capsule is controlled by voluntary muscles, 
so that the queen lets a seminal filament slip out at will. When 
an egg destined to produce a drone passes by the queen does 
not allow the seminal filaments to pass out. Siebold invariably 
found spermatozoa in the eggs of workers and queens, but never 
in those of drones. 

Thus it may be received as an axiom that " every normally 
organized and fertilized queen possesses the power of laying male or 
female eggs at will ; that is to say, of leaving an egg unfertilized 
or depositing it fecundated, at will, when engaged in laying her 
eggs." 

Siebold also found "that by the copulation of insects the ovaries 
are not fecundated, but that the seminal receptacle is filled with 
semen, and that the fecundation of the egg only takes place at 
the moment when the egg to be laid slips by the orifice of the 
seminal receptacle in the oviduct." 

That the ovary itself is not affected by the impregnation is 
proved, I think, by Siebold's statement that "those female insects 
which after the completion of copulation survive their males in 
the autumn hibernate with the ovaries imperfectly developed, 
and only lay fertilized eggs capable of develojDment in the fol- 
lowing spring, after their ovaries have become filled with mature 
eggs." Such is the case with the humble and other wild bees, the 
wasps, and many other insects. So that it seems thus far to be 
proved that the spermatozoa introduced into the seminal capsule 
by the male never pass out of it again, unless subject to the will 
of the queen. 

It results from these facts that the drone progeny are in no 
way influenced by the father of the workers and queens produced 
at the same egg-laying. To return to our question then, whether 
the "drone progeny of an Italian queen fertilized by a black 
drone are in anyway affected by the cross?" I should answer 
that they are not j and I believe such would be the answer of any 
one conversant with the facts established by practical bee-keepers 
and scientific physiologists. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 21 

Siebold also tested the truth of his independent investigations 
by the results of hybridizing Italian and common German black 
bees, frequently practiced by bee-keepers. He says that if the 
theory of parthenogenesis is correct, "we might beforehand 
expect that by the copulation of a unicolorous blackish-brown 
G-erman and a reddish-brown Italian bee, the mixture of the two 
races would only be expressed in the hybrid females and workers, 
but not in the drones, which, as proceeding from unfecundated 
eggs, must remain purely German or purely Italian, according as 
the queen selected for the production of hybrids belonged to the 
German or Italian race." And in fact such he found to be inva- 
riably the case. It is evident, however, that these experiments 
must be made with the greatest care, and of course the queens 
must be full-blooded — {. e., of pure race; and, as Siebold remarked 
in 1856, "the observations will have to be made only with indi- 
viduals of a perfectly pure race, which will not always be obtained 
with ease and certainty, since the breeding of the Italian swarms 
side by side with the German bee-hives is already carried on 
amongst us to a very great extent. How difficult it may be to 
find a perfectly genuine and pure queen for such experiments is 
shown by the mixtures of two races of bees," to which he previ- 
ously refers. Further on he quotes the statement of Berlepsch, 
that "all queens which are of a beautiful yellow externally only 
produce Italian drones, even when they produce partly Italian and 
partly German workers." 

A German mother, which was fertilized by an Italian drone, 
produced German and Italian workers, but only German drones. 
When, on the contrary, the mother is not of a fine yellow, when 
she has traces of black blood in her, the drones also come forth 
mixed, whether the mother be fertilized by a German or Italian 
male; of course, because the males only take after the mother." 
Siebold then adds that from the observation of a great number 
of productions of hybrid bees " it must therefore be regarded as 
certain that, in accordance with Dzierzon's theory, bees of pure 
race are deprived of the power of producing hybrid drones." 

I think then that the question at the head of this article is 
fully answered in the negative. It should be borne in mind that 
queens of pure race are difficult to be obtained, and hence their 
drone progeny are impure ; so that to most -bee-keepers the result 
of a cross between an ordinary Italian queen and a black drone 
may be impure. 



22 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

ARTIFICIAL COMB. 

BY M. QUINBY, ST. JOHNSVILLE, N. Y. 

Can it be made? Will the bees accept it? Will it pay to 
make it? Before we can comprehend the advantages of artificial 
comb we must ascertain, as far as practicable, the cost of wax, 
or natural comb. 

It is said that a swarm of bees will consume not far from thirty 
pounds of honey in secreting wax to fill an ordinary hive with 
combs weighing a little more than one pound when new. Assuming 
that it is correct, we can not estimate the honey consumed worth 
less than three dollars at the lowest rate possible. We must not 
lose sight of a more important consideration in our estimate. 
Bees do not build comb except during a honey-harvest. We 
want now to ascertain, if possible, how much honey the bees that 
are engaged building this comb would accumulate in this time, 
providing there were empty combs ready made to receive it as 
collected. I have weighed strong swarms in box hives, part full 
of comb, during a full yield of buckwheat. In seven days one 
hive gained twelve pounds, another sixteen pounds, another in 
twelve days gained thirty pounds. During clover blossom a new 
swarm gained forty pounds in fourteen days. None of these ex- 
ceeded three pounds per day. We have reports of greater gains 
per day, but probably it was the result of double swarms. On the 
other hand, we have known a strong swarm, when empty combs 
were furnished, to collect over eighty pounds in one week. Forty 
and fifty pounds in a week is quite common. Mr. Hosmer re- 
ported fifty -three pounds in one day. From this it would appear 
that during a yield of honey the average gain from having combs 
furnished would be not less than forty pounds per week over what 
it would be if the bees had to build them. This in the two weeks 
that it takes to fill the hive with combs would be eighty pounds. 
Add the thirty pounds consumed to secrete the wax, it amounts in 
the aggregate to one hundred and ten pounds while filling the 
hive. At ten cents per pound, we have eleven dollars cost to fill 
an ordinary hive with comb. I presume that many would have 
rated the expense much higher than I have. But whatever it is. 
we want to see if economy will allow us to make it for them. 
Gen. Adair stated at the convention at Cleveland that by fur- 
nishing the bees with wax mixed with sugar they would manu- 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 23 

facture the combs and do it at a season when no honey was to be 
had in the flowers. If they will do this to the extent that we 
want comb made, we shall easily save very much more than half 
the expense. This process will soon be farther developed. All 
wax-combs are subject to injury from the moth-worm. They 
make a passage through the center, which the bees remove if they 
are strong enough; if not, it remains to spoil the hive. To re- 
move the silken gallery in the center of the comb about three 
rows of cells must be cut away and built anew; an additional 
and continual expense with all wax-combs, perhaps equivalent to 
a complete renewal once in five or six years. 

Until the present time all attempts to make artificial comb 
have failed, except a few cells. Nothing of practical value has 
been produced till now. Combs have been made of tin cells of 
full depth, coated with wax, and are readily accepted by the bees, 
using them both for storing honey and raising brood. The actual 
cost per square foot is not far from $1.50. Nine square feet is 
enough for a common hive, which would make the first cost con- 
siderably more than the same amount of wax-combs. But as this 
may be considered everlasting and the other to be often renewed, 
it is a question yet to be decided which is the cheapest. 

The tin combs are made in parts, and when they become filled 
with cocoons, bee-bread, etc., the parts can be taken down, boiled 
clean, wax-coated again, and set up as good as new. A patent has 
been applied for, and is yet pending. As this is the first practical 
artificial comb yet made, it was supposed that the field was clear ; 
but Mr. Wagner, ten years before, had obtained a patent on what 
he termed foundation-comb, which consisted of thin sheets of 
wax pressed into the shape of the bottom of the cells. This was 
offered as an objection, claiming that the "foundation" anticipated 
the full-depth ceil. Whether patented or not, no claim to a prior 
discovery will probably be made for full-depth cells. If some 
benevolent bee-keeper can discover some material as indestructi- 
ble hy the worms as tin that can, be furnished at less cost, and at 
the same time acceptable to the bees, and is willing to share the 
advantages with all, he will put us all under lasting obligations. 



Gentleness and boldness are two important requisites in 
handling bees. These, with knowledge and industry, will make 
a good bee-keeper. 



24 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

THE SOUTH AS A BEE COUNTRY. 

BY S. W. COLE, ANDREW CHAPEL, TENN. 

In keeping bees for commercial purposes on an extensive scale, 
the production and sale of honey will ever be the principal object 
of the apiarian. In the " coming time," which we trust a decade 
or so of years will usher in, when honey will have largely taken 
the place of molasses in commerce, and the price of it will have 
settled down to a low and uniform standard in all the markets, 
favored localities for bee-keeping will then be sought for and 
appreciated more than at present. 

It has been the history in the rise and growth of all great 
commercial products that when their production has become 
extensive enough to affect the commerce of the whole country, 
while many localities could produce them, districts favoring their 
cheap and easy production have always taken the lead and held 
a kind of monopoly in the production of those particular classes 
of products. This has been notably the case in fruit-growing, in 
stock-raising, and in wheat and cotton-growing. While we hold 
that it will always be profitable to keep bees wherever honey 
can be gathered, the fact is evident that it will pay much the 
best if they be kept in a good honey district. 

In that "coming time" when our country will be so intersected 
with competing lines of railroads, and freights will be so reduced 
as to enable distant sections to exchange products with each other, 
or to ship them to the great commercial centers of the country 
at a merely nominal cost ; when high prices at any point will be 
impossible on account of the cheap and superior facilities of 
transportation ; then, if not before, the South as a bee country 
will receive the attention of apiarians it so richly deserves. 

Bee-keeping, as a business to be made profitable, must receive 
our whole attention, and it is useless to expect the highest results 
from our bees unless they be kept where forage is abundant. "We 
do not wish to discourage artificial pasturage ; this is certainly 
good as far as it goes ; but it appears to us that it is only advisable 
where bee-keeping is a secondary consideration, and the bee- 
keeper has other occupations to confine him to that particular 
locality. But if we wish to engage in bee culture as a specialty, it 
has always appeared to us to be much better to go at once to a 
good honey-producing district than to spend years, or perhaps 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 25 

nearly a life-time, in the vain endeavor perchance to raise 
orchards of honey-producing trees in soils or localities uncon- 
genial to their growth. And if this should meet the eye of any 
devoted bee-keeper engaged in the up-hill business of raising 
miniature bee-forests, we really hope that he will give it up 
at once, and move bees, traps, and all to Kentucky, Tennessee, 
Arkansas, or Missouri, the real bee El Dorado of America. The 
southern bee-keepers have many advantages over their northern 
brethren. Our mild winters dispensing with all necessity of in- 
door wintering, and our earlier and longer seasons giving us 
superior advantages in securing surplus honey or in the multipli- 
cation of colonies. The season of 1870 was the first failure in the 
spring honey -harvest known in my locality for twenty years past, 
while we have an almost absolute certainty of an abundant fall 
harvest every season. In putting our bees into winter-quarters 
in the fall our greatest trouble has always been to find enough 
empty combs for wintering. 

It is true that our southern honey has not heretofore ranked 
as high as northern honey in the northern markets ; but it has 
been owing solely to the fact that it has generally been shipped 
in bad condition and in unsightly packages. If handled with the 
same care, and if put up in the same showy form, if from the 
same sources of pasturage, we defy any one to distinguish it from 
the best northern honey. 

If our northern brother bee-keepers could but get a sight of 
some of the forests that border our river courses in the south, and 
could see the wilderness of maples growing there, while the banks 
of the small creeks and bayous for miles are lined with a perfect 
hedge of willows; and back from these, and bordering on them, 
the woods are darkened into semi-twilight by the thick evergreen 
foliage of the holly — another splendid bee-plant — and as you 
ascend to the upland you would find forests of giant old poplars, 
interspersed now and then with the stately bass-wood, while the 
wild grape-vines form a net- work of the undergrowth, or swing- 
like great cables from the tops of trees a hundred feet high; while 
on the edge of the bottoms bordering these forests will frequently 
be found clearings of a hundred acres or so, done under the old 
regime, but now abandoned for want of labor to the undisputed 
possession of the blackberry, and of the whole family of asters 
and golden rods; they would say, as we do, that with all its 
other blessings it is certainly the paradise of bee-keepers. 



26 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

THE LABORATORY IN THE BEEHIVE. 

BY D. L. ADAIR. 

" One drop of water hath no power; one spark of fire is not 
strong ; but the gathering together of waters called seas, and the 
communion of many flames, do make both raging and invincible 
elements. And una apis, nulla apis, one bee is no bee, but a mul- 
.titude, a swarm of bees, uniting their forces together, is very 
profitable, very comfortable, very terrible ; profitable to their 
owners, comfortable to themselves, terrible to their enemies." — 

PURCHAS. 

The state of rapid advancement in which the science of bee 
culture now is, is no doubt based on solid facts; but until those 
isolated facts are understood in all their bearings on each other, we 
must consider it in its infancy. If what little we know of the 
actual laws governing the actions of the honey-bee has enabled us 
to accomplish so much, what may we not expect when research 
has brought to light and unfolded all the hidden mysteries of the 
hive, and arranged them in a. perfect system. It is probable that 
not far in the future we will look back upon our present knowl- 
edge of the subject and wonder at the narrow sphere to which 
our knowledge is confined, as we now do when we look back a 
few years and see the ludicrous superstitions that then formed the 
basis of the science. 

In America, until very recently, bee-keeping has been consid- 
ered too trivial to enlist in its investigation men of science, but 
it is to be hoped that the time has passed in which it was so 
viewed, and that it will hereafter be dignified with the position 
it deserves ; and that when science is brought more fully to bear 
upon it, it will unfold to us more of the principles governing the 
labors of the most wonderful of insects. 

Until that is brought about we must be satisfied with what 
we know and can learn, but not follow the example of many by 
concluding there is no necessity for further progress. 

There are many important points of which we have but a 
glimmering, that would be clearly perceived if we had a more 
perfect knowledge of the economy of the hive from beginning to 
end. Without arrogating to ourself the knowledge and capacity 
to unravel all the mysteries, we have written what follows as our 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 27 

convictions, and have attempted to follow a colony of bees from 
their swarming and being hived through all of the labors of the 
hive. 

If Ave hive a natural swarm of bees in an empty hive, of such 
construction that we can observe and closely watch their work, 
we find that they suspend themselves from the top of the hive, or 
chamber, in which they are placed, in as compact a form as pos- 
sible, appearing as an inverted cone ; but in reality the true, 
efficient, active force is composed of bees in the shape of a sphere, 
or ball, the bees forming the inverted base being stationed in that 
position for the purpose of suspending the true cluster. 

By a close observation we will find that the outside bees of 
the cluster are not a part of the active force, but form a crust 
inclosing the active cluster ; in fact, they and the suspending 
bees form a natural hive, inside of which the organized forces are 
working. By taking a small stick or wire and passing it hori- 
zontally and suddenly through the middle of the cluster and 
letting all below it drop, we can, by looking quickly, see that the 
solid wall of bees is not exceeding an inch and a half in thickness, 
while inside it is not at all crowded, but that there is a hollow 
about three inches in diameter, and no more bees inside of it than 
can work on the new comb-structure. 

They commence working at the point where the circumference 
of the hollow sphere touches the top of the hive, by forming a 
narrow neck of comb, at first not more than three or four cells 
wide. This they carry down, slowly widening, but rapidly 
lengthening until they reach a point exactly at the center of the 
hollow. Here they establish a center from which they work. 
Cells are built in a circle around this center, and it soon becomes 
the widest part of the comb ; but as it widens and thickens it gets 
heavier, and would break down if the stem were not strengthened, 
so that it gradually widened until the comb at the center is about 
three inches wide, when the neck is equally widened. 

The edges of the comb now touch the inside of the crust, and 
the crust recedes. Just at this time two parallel sheets of comb 
are begun, as before, and are run down opposite the center. 
When the first cells on the stem are about one eighth of an inch 
deep the bees begin to place honey in them, and continue to fill 
them as they are built up until they get within one or two inches 
of the center; below that they place no honey. 

But as soon as the central cell is one eighth of an inch deep 



28 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

the queen lays an Qgg in it. She then goes around on the oppo- 
site side and lays eggs in the three cells that are built from the 
base of the central one. She then returns and deposits eggs in 
the six cells surrounding the first one, and continues to keep the 
cells on both sides filled with eggs as fast as they are ready to 
receive them, thus establishing the center of her brood-nest at 
the center of the comb -structure ; and when the comb on each 
side of the first is brought down opposite the center she embraces 
them in her circuit, thus giving her brood-nest a globular form. 

The honey-storing bees keep the store-cells above filled with 
honey down to the brood. As the sheets of comb are widened 
they come down lower, and as each additional comb-sheet is built 
they occupy more of it, thus storing the honey in an arch or 
dome over the brood. 

The work thus progresses, and will continue in the same order 
for twenty-one days, if the space be large enough ; at which time 
the brood-nest attains its full size; for at the expiration of that 
time the cells in the center first filled with eggs are vacated by 
the maturing bees, and the queen returns to the center to refill 
them with eggs ; and as they are emptied in the same rotation in 
which they were filled, she continues to follow them up, going 
over the same ground every twenty- one days. 

The completion of the brood-nest does not stop the comb- 
building. That continues as rapidly as ever ; but, as it is not filled 
with eggs by the queen, the honey -gatherers keep it filled with 
honey, thus surrounding the brood with honey. 

Let us now examine the comb that has been constructed, and 
we find that all of the cells embraced in the brood sphere are of 
a regular size, and is all worker-comb. The cells in the upper 
part, filled with honey, are most likely a size larger, and frequently 
irregular. So far there is no drone-comb. 

Around the brood-nest on every side, and below, there is found 
a border of cells that are neither filled with brood nor honey, but 
are partly filled with bee-bread. 

Let us again accompany the queen on her circuit and note 
what occurs. The first bees that emerge from the cells remain 
on the sheets of comb that reared them. For three days they 
eat nothing. Their alimentary organs are not matured, although 
their stomachs are filled with food which they received in the 
larval state. A part of this is taken up by the circulation, and 
is used in completing their internal organism. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 29 

At the end of three days the eggs laid in cells from which 
they came hatch, and the young bees disgorge the remaining 
contents of their stomachs into the cells as food for the young 
larvae. They then begin to eat the bee-bread that we have said 
is placed around the brood-nest on all sides, which is taken into 
their stomachs, and after being partially digested is given to the 
larvae. For about four days, or a little longer, they continue to 
feed the larvae ; their growth being then completed, the nurse-bees 
begin to eat honey sparingly, and become wax-workers. 

The bee-bread and honey they consume is no longer disgorged 
as food for the larvae, but is thoroughly digested, and in the labo- 
ratory of their stomachs is changed into wax, which is secreted 
in glands perhaps, from which, as it hardens, it finds its way 
into the wax-pockets under the abdomen. The first formed is 
perhaps used to cap over the larvae they have been nursing. This 
period does not necessarily limit the capacity of the young bees 
as nurses, but it is probable that they can perform that office as 
long as they continue in their adolescent state, and are eaters 
of bee-bread ; but the food not given to the larvae is converted 
into wax. 

As the wax accumulates on them, they gradually, following 
the course of the queen, recede from the center, and find room on 
the outskirts of the comb-structure for depositing their wax. 

The bees that have been comb-building up to this time pass 
out into the fields as gatherers of honey, to be stored in the comb 
as built by the new wax -workers; the latter, after passing their 
allotted time in that mechanical labor, in turn becoming honey- 
gatherers, and after laboring in the fields for about a month and 
performing duty as crust-bees, die of old age. 

We thus see that there is a perfect system governing the work 
of the bee ; that, contrary to former notions, which supposed that 
the different offices of the bee were directed, as a system of police 
in a government, by a head, and were executed by the exercise 
of reason and discretion, they are involuntary, and each bee in 
succession performs all the duties. As it increases in age it is 
crowded outwardly by the development of others in the center. 
From a nurse in the brood-nest its labors are first transferred to 
the wax structure ; thence to the gathering and storing of honey; 
and when it is no longer of use as a productive agent it takes its 
place in the living wall that protects what it can no longer pro- 
duce, and fin all v is cast off like the withered leaf. 



30 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

So far we have gone on the supposition that there was room 
for the bees to extend their work in every direction, except up. 
But as that is seldom the case with the bees in hives, let us con- 
sider the effect of a failure of room in any direction. We have 
said that when the cluster is first formed a part of the bees form 
a living hive or crust around the hollow in which the first work 
is done, and that as the comb-building progresses they recede 
before it. This they continue to do, swelling out like an India- 
rubber balloon as it is inflated with air, always encompassing the 
comb. They are the hive proper. The bees claim no occupancy 
of any other part of the hive, be it large or small, than is inclosed 
inside of this globular crust. 

This living crust has its analogy in other hymenopterous in- 
sects — for instance, the papery nest-covering around the brood- 
nest of the hornet (Vespa crabro) — which, simultaneously with the 
building of the first brood-cells, has its commencement, and soon 
assumes the shape of a globe surrounding the cell-structure of the 
nest. As the number of galleries and additional comb is built, it 
is enlarged until, from a ball the size of a boy's toy. it attains 
near a foot in diameter. The hornet not being accompanied 
by a host of animals out of which to form a living wall, nature 
provides an instinct to produce a substitute in a paper crust that 
protects the nest. 

We will now suppose the bees to be placed in a hive ten inches 
deep, thirteen inches wide, and two feet long, and that the cluster 
is formed in the center of it each way. In an ordinary-sized 
swarm the brooding center will be placed three and a half inches 
below the top ; and if the comb be built across the hive, it will be 
equidistant from the sides and bottom, so that when the first sheet 
of comb is extended six inches from the center each way it will 
have reached within one half inch of the sides and bottom, which 
is as near as the bees will approach with brood-comb to a solid 
wall. The store-comb above will be joined to the sides. 

The crust, having receded to the wall and bottom, gives way 
and is broken; but as the solid walls and bottom of the hive take 
its place no harm is done. Lengthwise of the hive the circle has 
been maintained, and the eighth and ninth sheets of comb have 
been commenced, which are twelve inches apart. Around them 
the crust is maintained. The cluster can extend no further lat- 
erally, and is forced out toward the ends. The cluster is divided 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 31 

into two hemispheres, and the work extends toward the ends of 
the hive, pushing them before it. 

If there are any cracks or openings in the evacuated territory 
too small for a bee to pass through, they are carefully stopped 
up with propolis, as to leave them behind would disorganize the 
harmony of the operation. If large enough for a bee to pass 
through, a part of the crust-bees are left to stop them with their 
bodies, many of them passing to the outside. If there are holes 
in the ceiling or top of the chamber, they are managed in the 
same way. 

Thus the work progresses until the hive is filled with comb, 
brood, and honey, the crust finally giving way, and leaving none 
thus engaged except such as are guarding the openings. 

Then if there be honey -boxes on top of the hive many of 
them will pass into them; others will be forced out at the en- 
trance-holes, and "hang out," as it is called. The wax-workers, 
having no further work, follow them, and when enough join them 
in the boxes they suspend themselves to the top and reorganize 
as an independent cluster in each box, and go to work as they 
did in the beginning, the same process of comb-building being 
repeated in miniature by each cluster, with this difference, that 
the queen being left in the brood-nest below, the cells are not 
filled with brood, but are occupied with honey. Each cluster 
being small and disconnected, the whole of them fail to progress 
as rapidly as they did in the continuous chamber. 

Before considering the effects of the disorganization let us go 
back to the cluster as first formed, and see if we can learn any- 
thing of its objects. In order to do so let us place two thermometers 
in the hive, one outside of the crust and the other inside of it. 
The one inside will indicate a temperature of 70° Fahrenheit; 
the other will show a temperature different, depending on the 
temperature of the atmosphere. We will also place in the same 
manner in the hive two, hygrometers. (The hygrometer is an 
instrument for measuring the moisture of the atmosphere.) The 
one inside of the cluster will mark the atmosphere dry and fail 
to indicate the presence of moisture; the one outside will mark 
a degree of moisture as influenced by the outside atmosphere, 
augmented by the exhalations from the cluster. 

Other phenomena are observed of which we will not now 
speak, these being sufficient for our present purpose. From the 



32 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

observations here laid down we think we are justified in the fol- 
lowing conclusions, the substance of some of which we have 
published before : 

1. A colony of bees is a unit. Each bee is but a member of 
the whole body, and not separate and individual, any more than 
the fingers of the hand or the buds on the tree. The nerves that 
connect the fingers with the controlling intelligence of the body 
are palpable and easily realized ; but the bee, as a part of the 
colony, is connected with the controlling intelligence of the hive 
by an impalpable and invisible agency, which is as perfect as the 
nerves of the human body. A bee separated from the colony, 
beyond the influence of this agency, is as useless as the finger 
separated from the body, and as surely perishes. Upon no other 
hypothesis can we satisfactorily account for many of the operations 
of these insects. It will not do in the face of facts to say they 
are endowed with reason, or that they are capable of education ; 
for all they do is governed by unvarying laws as certain as the 
law of gravitation or any other law of nature. They would be 
useless to man were it otherwise ; for did they exercise a will, and 
had they a discretion or reason they could not be depended on to 
do the same thing always alike, as they invariably do under 
like circumstances, and it is only by understanding and taking 
advantage of these fixed habits that bee-keeping has progressed 
so rapidly. 

2. A normal colony of bees consists of a queen and workers ; 
and nothing but worker-comb is ever constructed in the brood- 
nest or, near it, laterally or below, as long as there is no disturb- 
ance of the balance or harmony of the hive. 

3. The construction of drone-comb and queen-cells is never 
carried on when the balance is perfect, but is always the result of 
disorganization or some disturbance of the harmony of the hive. 

4. The presence of drones in a hive is always an indication 
that the true normal balance has beep disturbed, and that the 
regular working of the colony has been interfered with. 

5. So long as there is a vigorous, fertile queen, well supplied 
with worker-cells in which to deposit all her eggs, with no more 
young bees than can be employed in feeding the larvae, the elabo- 
ration of wax, and building of comb, neither drone-comb nor 
queen-cells will be constructed; nor will the queen lay eggs in 
drone-cells that are already built, provided the hive is of such a 
construction as will allow the bees to form their cluster as a unit. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 33 

As we have seen, the natural cluster is in the form of a globe or 
ball, with the necessary bees to suspend it; but if the hive is too 
narrow or shallow, they will be drawn out to greater length, but 
will not have their harmony interrupted until the cluster crowds 
against some side, top or bottom, in which there is a hole through 
which they can pass. It matters not whether the opening leads 
out into the open air or into some adjoining chamber or honey- 
box ; the unity is thereby broken up, as a part of the bees are cut 
off from the main body, and to that extent the colony is disor- 
ganized. 

6. That the theory of ventilation of the hive, in summer as 
well as winter, most generally received, is injurious; for any air- 
hole into a hive full of comb, and in which the natural crust is 
superseded by the walls of the hive, although it is covered with 
wire-cloth, places the colony in an abnormal condition, and nature 
makes the same effort to close it that she does when the bark of a 
tree is pierced ; and the bees work diligently, if not always suc- 
cessfully, in plastering it over with propolis. 

7. A hive so constructed or managed that all the bees of a 
colony can have at all times ample room to maintain their normal 
relative positions, and which is kept supplied with a vigorous 
queen by the bee-keeper superseding the old queen whenever 
she shows signs of decline, and in which no violations of the 
theory here laid down are committed, will never have in it 
any drones or drone-comb, will never attempt to raise a queen, 
and consequently never cast a swarm. The wax -workers will 
supply all the comb needed for brood and honey, the maximum 
of strength will be kept up, and the only reasonable limit to 
the amount of surplus honey will be the amount of the supply 
in the flowers. 

The periods here given as governing the different operations 
are necessarily variable, as they depend on circumstances not 
named, but are about the average, in a normal colony, during 
the honey-harvest. We have reports of the Italian bee reach- 
ing its imago state in eighteen days, and in other instances it is 
lengthened to twenty-four; but, as we conceive, these fall under 
the head of irregularities, and indicate an abnormal state of the 
colony. 

For a fuller elucidation of this theory the articles entitled " Why 
do Bees construct Queen-cells?" and " The Genesis of the Honey- 
Bee, " should be read in this connection. 



34: ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



DOES A QUEEN STING HER ROYAL RIVAL? 

BY MRS. ELLEN S. TUPPER, OF IOWA. 

This is a question which I would like to have answered by any 
one who has any knowledge of the matter. We find interesting 
accounts of the battles of rival queens in works upon the bee, 
but we find also various other things given as facts which our 
observation does not confirm as such. Has any one now rearing 
queens, and constantly familiar with the interior of the bee-hive, 
witnessed these "terrible combats?" In over twelve years' expe- 
rience in this particular branch of bee-keeping I must say I have 
never had any proof that a queen's sting was used for any such 
purpose. 

I have several times been stung by a queen ; in every instance 
it has been a black queen that I was handling roughly, perhaps 
holding in my hand for safe-keeping while closing a hive, not 
caring if I did hurt it, only anxious to prevent its escape. In one 
instance of the kind the sting of the queen was left in my hand 
with the entrails attached, precisely as is often the case with the 
sting of a worker. We know that a strange queen is in danger 
when entering a colony, but does not her danger arise from the 
disposition of the workers rather than the animosity of the queen 
of that hive? It would seem so from the fact that she is in quite 
as much danger if put into a queenless colony, unless they are 
prepared for her reception. Perhaps the facts in this case have 
very little value practically, but to the naturalist it is important 
that truth, not fiction, be his basis of opinion. 

I have times without number seen the worker-bees injure a 
queen in various ways, by hugging, by biting, and by stings. I 
have repeatedly found several stings in the body of a dead queen, 
but I know they were the stings of workers, not royal stings. 

We have in works upon the bee homilies upon the wisdom of 
nature which so arranged matters that both queens could not 
sting at the same time, and so the life of one was preserved. But 
these "naturalists" do not tell us by what miracle the life and 
value was preserved of the queen who used her siing upon the 
other. It seems to me, after a careful microscopic examination of 
a queen who had left her sting in my hand, that the loss of a 
portion of her entrails, and as it appeared to me, the mutilation 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 35 

of her ovaries, would have destroyed her value if not her life. I 
confess I can not understand why the loss of a sting should cause 
a worker's death and leave a queen uninjured. 

I have many times seen a queen running wildly about a comb 
in great excitement while the workers were destroying royal cells, 
but have never seen her touching them herself. I have also re- 
peatedly seen five and six young queens newly hatched quiet on a 
frame whilethe workers were destroying royal cells. In one case 
I kept four a week, or until the first one was fertilized, in safety 
in one hive, the bees paying them no more attention than if they 
were workers. I know this is uncommon, but similar instances 
will no doubt come to the remembrance of all queen-rearers. 
Surely, in the many instances we can all recall where queens have 
been destroyed by queenless colonies, there was no queen agency, 
directly or indirectly, in the matter. 

So far as my experience throws light upon the matter I am 
of the opinion that these "combats " belong to the same class of 
facts as does the old assertion that queens are " fertilized inva- 
riably high up in the air." " Presumption " though it is called to 
withhold our belief from such facts, there are some of us " living 
to learn," and learning every day, who prefer to trust our own 
eyes rather than the evidence given by a blind man who, wonder- 
ful as was his knowledge, was obliged to trust much 'to the obser- 
vation of uneducated eyes. 



WHAT ARE THE MOST DESIRABLE IMPROVEMENTS 

IN BEE CULTURE. 

BY CHAS. DADANT, HAMILTON, ILLINOIS. 

For the last few years the genius of the American bee-keepers 
have been traveling so fast in improvements of hives, more or less 
rational, that it is perhaps time to stop and look backward to 
see if there are not some untrodden paths to be discovered. 

In this article I propose to draw their attention to two subjects 
of the first importance to them : 1. The improvement of honey- 
producing plants ; 2. The improvement of the honey-bee. 



36 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

Man has at length ceased to consider himself the fallen being 
that he did during the first centuries of Christianity. He knows 
now that far from being inferior to what he was in the beginning, 
every day adds something to his ideas, to his intellect, and to his 
power. He knows that if he has so long been poor and feeble 
and a coward, it was because he was but obeying the law of all 
beings who, on the threshold of life, have everything to learn. 

His doubts and his fears now vanish before him. He begins to 
know himself and his powers, and is certain of triumphing over 
difficulties. He has discovered that he is the king, the master, of 
all the beings that surround him. He knows now that he can 
model them at will. Out of thorny bushes he has made countless 
varieties of pears, apples, plums, peaches, etc. The most insig- 
nificant flowers have been forced to enlarge their corollas and 
change their colors to please his eye. The vegetable kingdom 
has been compelled to submit to all his exigencies, either for 
ornament or usefulness. 

It is therefore with perfect confidence of success that I propose 
to the bee-keepers to require from the red clover shorter corollas 
than it has at present, in order that the bees may gather from its 
flowers the abundant treasures of honey that has so long been 
locked up from them. 

Billions of pounds of honey are lost every year in the red- 
clover blossoms. This honey man can appropriate to himself if 
he so wills. There are several ways to attain this end. 

1. Selection. By selecting such clover-heads as the bees have 
been seen to gather honey from, saving the seeds and sowing 
them separately in dry and infertile soil. 

2. Hybridization. By trying to cross the red clover with 
white or alsike clover. 

3. Analysis. As each part of a plant is composed of different 
elements, by having a skillful chemist to analyze separately the 
leaves, stems, and corollas of the clover it could be found out 
whether the corollas do not need a certain element not necessary 
to the development of the other parts of the plant. By cultivating 
clover in the same field for years and giving back to the ground 
all the elements necessary to the growth of the plant, but with- 
holding such as are necessary to the formation of the corollas. 

By some of these means we may be able to create a variety of 
clover as advantageous to the bees as to cattle. 

The power of man is not confined to plants; it extends also 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 37 

over the animal kingdom. There it has produced its greatest 
marvels ; for it has not only changed the form of beings, but has 
modified their instincts to suit his wishes and his necessities. 

Dogs, for instance, became at his bidding bull-dogs for the farm, 
hounds for the chase, King Charleses for the ladies' pets, shepherd- 
dogs, pointers, etc. 

In fecundity too animals have been compelled to obey the will 
of man. The pigeon increased its laying tendencies from one or 
two broods yearly to ten or twelve. The hen, which in a state of 
nature would lay the six hundred eggs in her ovaries in ten or 
twelve years, has been forced by man to lay nearly all of them 
in four years. 

What man has obtained from dogs in intelligence, and from 
pigeons and chickens in fecundity, he can obtain from the 
honey-bee. By judicious breeding and selection he can obtain 
a stronger, gentler, and more industrious variety. 

Ey a rational system of feeding he can force the queens to lay 
in two or three years the hundreds of thousands of eggs that their 
ovaries contain. We should notice that nature is one in its op- 
erations, notwithstanding its infinite diversity. To secure a more 
regular and rapid breeding from the pigeon and the hen it was 
sufficient to place them in a suitable climate or atmosphere, and 
to give them an abundance of suitable food. After a few genera- 
tions their frequent laying became an established habit and a 
natural necessity. 

All bee-keepers know, or ought to, that during spring, if there 
should be several cold days in succession, the queen will stop 
laying, and only begin again after several days of mild weather. 
It is also a known fact that if the bees are placed in a hive suffi- 
ciently protected, and if they receive every cold evening a few 
spoonfuls of syrup, the queen will continue to lay as well as if the 
weather was warm and sunny. If this attention was continued 
for several generations, it is possible, nay, it is certain, that the 
continued laying would become a fixed habit. 

A careful choice of breeds; good shelter against the changes 
of the weather ; large hives ; straight comb ; so that the queen 
need lose no time for want of room; stimulating feeding during 
cold days. By these simple means we will certainly accomplish 
the desired results, and our success with bees will prove even 
more the power of man over the animals that are subject to his 
dominion. 



38 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



WILL IT PAY TO CULTIVATE PLANTS OR TREES 
EXCLUSIVELY FOR THE HONEY THEY YIELD? 

BY "NOVICE," MEDINA, OHIO. 

As we have been for the past year quite extensively engaged 
in collecting facts in regard to the possibility of a "honey-farm," 
we think perhaps others may feel interested to know what we 
have gathered. 

A host of plants have been recommended for the purpose 
simply because bees have been observed busily at work on the 
flowers, and we have no doubt that they found honey, or they 
would not have been there. Had these observations been made 
when clover was in bloom, or when they were really filling their 
hives from some source, we should readily conclude that they 
were finding honey in paying quantities. But so far as our ex- 
perience goes there are but a limited number of "plants or trees 
that really enable bees to store up honey from them. 

In the fall, when almost all forage fails about here, bees are 
seen busy on a host of plants ; but with their hive on a pair of 
delicate spring-scales we oftentimes fail to see any increase in 
weight, but more often directly the contrary. 

In the year 1867, we think it was, we moved six colonies of 
Italians to a buckwheat-field two and a half miles away, and kept 
them while it was in bloom. They made a beautiful sight, and in 
the forepart of the day they seemed busier than even during the 
bass-wood season, as we suppose they really were; but they did not 
store one pound of honey more than they consumed. On another 
occasion we sowed borage for them, not a large plat it is true, but 
as we then had but few hives we supposed there would be a trace 
of borage-honey. As we have before remarked, the bees were 
very busy on it after other sources failed, but "nary trace" of 
borage-honey could we find. 

Fruit-trees have never, so far as our experience goes, fur- 
nished but little more than what was used in rearing brood. Last 
season the shell-bark hickory furnished more than fruit blossoms. 
Locust-trees gave us in 1870 about one thousand pounds, and there 
are certainly not more than two hundred and fifty trees in range 
of their flight. A locust-grove, were it not for the depredations 
of the borer, we think could not fail to be a good investment, 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 39 

even if the season is of short duration. They do not all blossom 
at once, and cultivation, we think, would give a much greater yield 
of hooey. "When we remember that it is a very rapid grower, 
and timber very valuable, we feel almost like wanting ten acres 
more to plant to locusts. White clover follows so closely that the 
locust-honey and clover are liable to become mixed. As there 
are perhaps one thousand acres of white and red clover-fields 
about us, we shall not think at present of raising more in our 
locality. 

Now then, dear readers, we come to our "hobby" — that "bass- 
wood orchard." Ever since we have used the extractor we could 
not have failed to notice the greatly increased amount of honey 
whenever we remarked the beautiful (to us) odor of the bass-wood 
blossoms. And during those few brief days, sometimes amount- 
ing to three weeks, have we secured fully three fourths of our 
honey, and they have been to us by far the pleasantest days of 
the year, even if we have been compelled to toil in the hot sun 
from daylight until dark ; for we do rest under the shade of the 
grape-vines occasionally, and a dipper of cold water with a judi- 
cious admixture of bass-wood honey is all that we could ask for 
to quench thirst, and the best definition that we can give of 
"nectar." During these three weeks who couldn't raise queens? 
If we just drop the removed cells on the ground, they are almost 
sure to hatch out "yellow beauties." 

Now all these tons of honey, all these happy days, with the 
refreshing twilight that follows, while the densely populated hive 
gives out a loud hum of contentment and prosperity, are the fruits 
of, dear reader, how many bass-wood trees ? Count all you can find 
within a radius of one and a half miles ; all the old straggling 
and decayed trunks ; all the long spindling growths that struggle 
to get a peep through the other trees at the blue above, and how 
many do we have ? These trees, be it remembered too, that yield 
most blossoms are where the other forest-trees are cut away, and 
where they can assume their natural round bushy head. 

Well, we have studied the subject so far as to thoroughly canvass 
the forest for two miles around, and find that our ten and a half 
acres will contain more trees than are growing naturally in that 
range, and besides growing better ones ; we are going to have 
them all "handy" for our little friends. 

Our bees now get the greater part of their bass-wood honey 
from forests located from one to two miles away (just in the 



40 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

direction of our "ranche," by the way), and are compelled to come 
home all the way up-hill loaded. If they did three turns that way, 
what can they do with proper facilities ? 

Our trees are to be planted twelve feet apart, in the form of 
honey-comb cells, viz., each one the center of six equally distant. 
Don't say that is too close till we tell all of it. Our forest re- 
searches have shown us that they blossom when quite small, and 
we want the ground all occupied with bass-wood trees, and when 
they are crowded we shall remove the alternate ones. 

We have purchased from a piece of forest that stock has been 
excluded from for six or seven years about four thousand trees, 
and are making preparation to plant them out as soon as the 
ground can be plowed; have purchased a quantity of bone-dust 
to put a small quantity in with each tree, and are going to culti- 
vate them most thoroughly. After bass-wood fails we generally 
have little or no employment for bees, and then is the time they 
are voted a nuisance. 

Now if we had some plant or tree that would keep them even 
moderately busy, say something that would keep ten stocks to 
the acre, storing each one pound per day, we could well afford 
the investment. Has any one any positive proof that this has 
been done ? We believe buckwheat does in some localities, at 
least buckwheat has the credit of it, but the honey is not called 
of fine quality. We have good authority for mignonette as a 
honey-plant, and think we shall test one acre this season. 

If we are never going to have any artificial comb-crust, can 
G-eneral Adair or some one else tell us how to keep them making 
natural worker-comb during the warm, idle fall weather? It 
is many times a hard matter to tell just where bees get their 
honey. For instance, when bees are in new countries and a 
solitary field of clover is sown, we should be pretty sure if they 
were busy then and storing honey that it was all from that 
souree, and yet it might be a great mistake. We think such a 
season as last fall was here some very accurate experiments 
might be made. 

One hundred acres of land planted to honey-bearing trees 
under full cultivation (remember what the limited number of 
locusts and bass-woods do here), with such plants as had been proved 
to be really productive of honey, as we have proved the trees 
mentioned, we can readily imagine might give some great results. 
If one hundred colonies could be kept at the moderate rate of ten 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 41 

pounds each colony per day for four months, or even one hundred 
days, what one hundred-acre farm would pay better ? 

If any one accuses us of building air-castles, please see if either 
of the three suppositions are so very much beyond what each one 
has been made to do in the last few years with our very imperfect 
knowledge and more imperfect practice. Quite large apiaries 
have given over an average of ten pounds to the hive per day for 
a short time, and in each of the months of June, July, August, 
and September large results have been occasionally realized. 
Who shall combine the whole or a part of the whole ? And when 
shall the honey -farm first bud and blossom ? 

Whoever it may be, or wherever located, like all past successes 
and achievements in bee-culture, none will herald its accomplish- 
ment with more genuine pleasure than your old friend, 

"Novice." 



WORK FOR OUR CONVENTIONS. 

BY DR. EHRICK PARMLY, NEW YORK CITY. 

I am sure many felt as I did on seeing the first number of our 
American Bee Journal that their favorite pursuit, now estab- 
lishing a periodical literature of its own, was more dignified and 
important than many thought it to be, and we all straightway 
held our heads higher when questioned as to what interest we 
could find in so trifling a pursuit. We replied, "You are possibly 
not aware that monthly journals are published in several countries 
exclusively devoted to bee-culture, and have a wide circulation." 
"Is it possible!" they exclaim. "What can you find to write 
about?" "So much, sir, that these periodicals now have a better 
subscription-list and far better prospects than in the first years 
of their existence." 

New questions are constantly arising and new difficulties pre- 
sent themselves to be surmounted, and these are laid before the 
readers for solution. A better class of men are joining our ranks; 
a more liberal and brotherly spirit is obtaining among them, and 
also an increased self-respect that is very gratifying to the faithful, 
earnest men long in the field, and who can look back to dark days, 



42 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

when they stood almost alone and without that encouragement 
and sympathy that comes from companionship of liberal minds 
in work and investigation. No social meetings, no societies, no 
bee-keeper's conventions in those days. Our only representative 
in public the trickster, or bee-charm man, at our fairs. 

It seems to me we have now arrived at a period in our history 
when we should avail ourselves of the benefit of organized effort 
to accomplish that which it is not advisable to undertake single- 
handed, owing to the great expense and risk, and doubtful advan- 
tage, pecuniarily considered — namely, the study and importation 
of varieties not yet tested in this country. 

I am in a measure led to these remarks by the want of success 
we have met in importing the Egyptian bee, and the difficulty 
we have had in even obtaining specimens or any information of 
value from distant countries of their native bees, which arises 
from the ignorance on this subject of the parties addressed rather 
than any lack of willingness to oblige us, as evinced by their 
correspondence. 

I would propose that the bee-keepers of the country unite in 
subscribing to defray the expenses of a practical apiarian, pos- 
sessing marked fertility of resource, to visit the old world and 
make himself acquainted with bees that have not been intimately 
studied. The three kinds of East India bees described in the 
American Bee Journal for December, 1870, need further study. 
Apis Dorsata, I think, deserves attention. It gives promise from 
its size of being able to work on plants not visited by our 
smaller bees. 

From the success that some have had in controlling fertiliza- 
tion we have now an additional inducement for testing varieties. 
The sum requisite for the above undertaking ought to be easily 
raised among the bee-keepers of the country. I think it would 
be money thrown away to attempt importation from such distant 
points without the personal supervision of a practical man from 
the start to the end of the journey. 

What pleasure this increase of knowledge would give to thou- 
sands ! The benefit can not be estimated. With promising fields 
open to us let us avail ourselves of them by subscribing liberally 
at an early day, and selecting our man for this. Such a work 
could be done by the "Father of Bee-culture in America" in a 
way to reflect great honor upon us if he could be persuaded to 
undertake it. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 43 

We will be respected and respect ourselves in proportion to the 
magnitude of our efforts in our calling. So long as we confine 
ourselves to small questions and issues we can not expect the 
esteem of earnest men in other callings. We will be judged 
by our acts. We must stand on a broad platform, and not feel 
satisfied until we know intimately the natural history and domes- 
ticity of all the varieties of the honey-bee in both hemispheres. 
This knowledge is within our reach. Why not gain it? We 
ought to keep at this work until we have full knowledge of the 
bee throughout the world. If we can not do this alone, then let 
us join hands with the apiarians of Germany, England, France, 
and Switzerland, and conquer success by a well-organized effort. 



THE ESSENTIALS OF BEE-KEEPING. 

BY DR. JEWELL DAVIS, CHARLESTON, ILL. 

In the Bee-keeper's Directory, page 201, J. S. Harbison says : 
"There are three requisites necessary to obtain surplus honey; 
the first of which is a hive, the main apartment full of comb, with 
the interspaces full of bees (no danger of being too many) ; the 
second, abundant pasturage; and the third, favorable weather. 
With these three requisites, boxes for the reception of surplus 
honey may be added with the assurance that they will be filled 
in due time." 

Again, on page 197 of the same work, he says: "The aim of 
every bee-keeper (who understands his business) will always 
be to keep his stock in such a shape that he can have his hives 
full, and ready to store surplus honey at the commencement of a 
harvest of flowers that are known to bloom at a certain time. 
The essentials then are to keep the stocks strong by furnish- 
ing pasturage, or feeding at a time when nature does not afford 
a supply." 

From the above quotations I find it essential also to successful 
bee-keeping that we have a man of understanding, who is fully 
acquainted with the nature and habits of bees, and how to prepare 
the pasturage that will yield its thousands of "luscious sweets," 
and how to make the house they should live in to most favor a 



44 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

large storing of surplus honey — the great desideratum for which 
bees are kept. 

We must therefore turn our attention to the man who contem- 
plates keeping bees. He must be a man who understands the 
essentials of that business in which he is about to engage or he 
will fail to make it a success ; he must then be intelligent, at least 
so far as bee culture is concerned ; he must know the nature of 
the bee, its peculiar habits, and how to supply all their natural 
and necessary wants; he must learn that "the existence of all 
animated nature depends on the earth's yielding her fruits in 
their appointed seasons. The increase and decrease of every race 
and class of the animal and insect kingdom are governed by the 
same. Hence we find the bee to increase most and flourish best 
where the earth yields the greatest profusion of flowers through 
the greatest number of months in the year." (See Bee-keeper's 
Directory, page 169.) 

The man then who is alive to profitable bee culture will seek 
for the location of his apiary where there is an abundance of 
honey -yielding flowers as the spontaneous production of the soil, 
or he must cultivate them for that purpose, and he must arrange 
their cultivation so that they will be almost in continuous bloom 
from spring until fall for the benefit of the acquisitive nature of 
his bees, thus securing the largest amount of honey that can be 
gathered in either favorable or unfavorable seasons, He must 
provide a hive that will meet their and his wants in storing 
honey and the increase of his stocks ; to maintain the species 
and increase the keeper's wealth. All hives are not made with 
these chief objects alone in view, but occasionally, to gain an 
"almighty dollar," either by sale of a "patent-right" or a "cheap 
hive." The best hive can not be made so cheaply when you take 
into consideration their honey capacity, and the ease of artificial 
swarming which is required at the hands of the expert and suc- 
cessful bee-keeper, and in this fast age of improvement in rearing 
queens in the queen -nursery, and having them fertilized in the 
bridal-chamber connected with their hive and nursery, and warmed 
by the bees of the stock where the nursery is. All these are 
considerations essential to this improved bee-keeping age. Of 
course it is not my purpose to call attention to any person's par- 
ticular make of hive as the best ; there are many good ones and 
many poor ones ; that is, poorly adapted to the ends I have in- 
dicated. The understanding bee-keeper will remedy all these 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 45 

defects as fast as he discovers them by something better, whether 
covered by a patent or otherwise. Movable-comb hives are among 
the indisp en sable essentials to improved bee culture : and I may 
here suggest another feature of some value to the extensive bee- 
keeper whose time is precious, viz., the arrangement of his hives 
so he can get at his bees with the least loss of time ; to make 
swarms, remove and introduce queens, use the queen-nursery, 
find what condition the stock is in, whether in possession of a 
prolific or superannuated queen, etc. 

I may say further that all hives are not adapted to convenience 
in these respects, and most all movable-comb hives subject us to 
the necessity of removing the cap, honey -board, and honey-boxes 
before we can have access to the combs and brood-chamber, or 
perform any required operation there. I will therefore suggest 
again that a hive which will not require these removals every time 
we wish to examine the brood-chamber, to find queens, make 
swarms, or learn their condition, is the one that suits me better 
than all others, provided it is made with equal honey capacity 
compared with any others. 

Above I have indicated that we must turn our attention to the 
cultivation of honey-yielding flowers, in all localities where they 
do not grow sj>ontaneously, in sufficient quantities for the large 
amount of honey we wish to gain ; and I may here repeat that in 
this cultivation we must arrange it so as to keep the flowers almost 
in continual bloom the entire summer, so that our bees may be 
constantly acquiring stores ; they are always ready for this work, 
and a rich harvest if they are numerous and strong. Some plants 
yield more honey than others, comparatively, in favorable seasons. 
The same is true of some plants in unfavorable seasons, perhaps 
chiefly because deeper rooted, endures the drought better, and 
secretes or excretes more honey. 

Wisdom in bee culture then will indicate that we investigate 
the peculiar worth of all the flora of America, as controlled in the 
secretion of honey, under all the changing vicissitudes of atmos- 
pheric influence. And in connection with their worth for other 
agricultural purposes, the clovers, especially the white and alsike, 
buckwheat, and purple polanisia, perhaps, are the chief among 
the plants to be cultivated. Nearly all the fruit-trees are valuable, . 
also all the small fruits should have a conspicuous place near our 
apiaries; many of these are great favorites with the bees. The 
polanisia is particularly visited by them in dry seasons, and per- 



46 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

haps nothing that we can cultivate can compare with it in such 
seasons, as it keeps the bees employed from morning to night, and 
from four to six weeks at a time, when most needed to keep the 
bees breeding and our stocks strong, thus preventing our stocks 
from dwindling down to the point where the moth-worms take 
possession and destroy them, or the winter coming finds them 
with less than a gallon of bees, or an insufficient quantity to 
generate the required amount of animal heat to keep them from 
perishing, as in the winters of 1868 and 1870.* That the hot and 
dry season of 1870, in many places, has been unfavorable for bee- 
keeping can not be denied. The dry weather cutting short the 
supply of honey in the flowers, the bees fail to feed the queen, 
and she is not stimulated to breeding; the stock diminishes in 
numbers if such a season is long protracted. The queen ceases 
to breed either wholly or partially during every dearth of honey, 
and if long continued we are sure to lose our bees, unless we feed 
them to keep them populous, and plenty of stores. 

To sum up then, we must have an intelligent apiarist, a good 
location, plenty of pasturage, a good hive with all its indispensable 
fixtures, and improvements for rearing queens, feeding and stimu- 
lating them to breeding, to save our bees in unproprtious seasons, 
and their loss by the chill of winter and old age. 



WHY NEWLY-HIVED SWARMS DESERT. 

BY ELISHA GALLUP, ORCHARD, IOWA. 

The subject now before us is, why do bees desert their hives 
after being hived ? etc. Some say one thing and some another. 
Some recommend washing the hive with salt and water, some 
with sweetened water, some with whisky ; some recommend 
rubbing the inside of the hive with peach-leaves (not kno wing- 
that we northern bee-keepers have no peach-leaves). I once knew 
an old maiden aunt to rub the inside of the hive with the leaves 
from a sweet apple-tree, and she claimed that it was a certain 

* This is true only when the honey-crops failed. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 47 

preventive. The bees always staid, etc. One claims newly- 
dressed pine is offensive to bees; another that freshly -painted 
hives will make them desert. One claimed that he set a swarm 
near a pile of leached ashes, and the smell of the ashes caused 
them to desert; another near the pig-sty, and the scent from that 
caused them to desert. And I might go on enumerating absurdi- 
ties like the above, and we should never arrive at any correct 
conclusion. If we examine closely into the above we shall see 
that every one of the above advocates believes that there is 
something mysterious, or that there is a certain remnant of old 
and ought-to-be-exploded superstition about bee-keeping, etc., etc. 
Now I have hived bees into pine, hemlock, spruce, butternut, 
walnut, oak, white-wood, bass-wood, and cherry, and I never allow 
anything to be rubbed in the hive. I have hived bees in freshly- 
painted hives, and I have painted them on the same evening after 
hiving ; and I have painted with Paris green, Venetian red, yellow 
ocher, white lead, etc., and if the weather is fine and the bees are 
gathering foliage abundantly, I never put anything but bees in 
the hive; that is, I never take the trouble to put in a card of 
brood and honey to make the bees stay ; but famine and excessive 
heat will cause bees to desert. 

Mrs. Tupper says, in the Bee-keeper's Journal, " that bees never 
will desert if we put in a card of unsealed brood with the newly- 
hived swarm. But this statement ought to be qualified a trifle. 
For if the weather becomes unpropitious for gathering forage, 
and remains so for several days, they will desert on account of 
starvation, unless they are fed, and they should be fed abundantly 
at such times. Again, excessive heat will compel them to desert 
both brood' and honey. The past season I experimented some- 
what in this line. I took swarms or stocks that had all the 
common entrances open (strong stocks), removed all the comb 
but one card containing unsealed brood, and brushed the bees 
back into the hive early in the morning, removed the shade from 
the hive, and about twelve or one o'clock out would come the 
bees. The thermometer w T as at 90 or 95 in the shade. Now raise 
the hive an inch on the front side, shade it from the sun and re- 
hive them and they were all right. I tried this experiment on 
six stocks, three of them I raised the hives and kept them shaded 
and. they did not swarm out. The other three I left without 
shading and did not raise the hive, and all three swarmed out. 
The fact is excessive heat will cause a swarm to desert all their 



48 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

comb and brood. Then of how much importance is it when 
hiving a new swarm to give them abundance of air, and keep 
them shaded from the broiling hot sun. In excessive hot weather 
you can safely hive a swarm in a hive without any bottom-board 
on the hive. I have done so often, and this is one great reason 
why I do not like a permanent bottom-board to my hives. On 
the other hand, if the nights are very cool, the hive should be 
closed at night, or in very cool weather; for we know that cold 
will cause bees to desert and leave all their stores in the fall. 

I never lost but two swarms of bees by flight in all my expe- 
rience. I had one leave on account of the hive being too smooth. 
I followed them up, cut down the tree, scratched up the hive on 
the inside rough, rehived them, and they were all right. I lost 
a swarm last season under the following circumstances : it was 
an extra large swarm; I hived it three times, and it came 
out the fourth time. I then found the queen, clipped a wing, 
rehived them, and gave them three cards of brood, and just about 
sunset out they came and put for the woods, and there was no 
stopping them. I found the queen with the clipped wing in front 
of the hive. And here was a poser for Gallup ; for I knew the hive 
they came from was a first swarm, consequently had an old queen. 
But on examining the hive they came from I found the old queen 
had been superseded, and two young queens had hatched out both 
at the same time, and had both issued with the swarm, and the 
swarm being an extra strong one, they were determined to keep 
both queens ; hence their swarming out so many times, and finally 
learning, at least, that was the only rational manner of accounting 
for their bad behavior. I lost another swarm last August by 
sheer carelessness. I had two large swarms come out quite early 
in the morning. I hived them, and set them in the shade as I 
supposed, gave them plenty of ventilation, and they went to 
work. But about two o'clock in the afternoon out came one 
swarm and put for the woods. They went about half a mile into 
a large oak, and on examining for the cause I found that there 
was an opening in the grove that let the hot sun pour right down 
on to the hive, and this was more than they could bear. So they 
were compelled to go. 

Motto : Use common-sense and not peach-leaves to rub a hive 
with, and I guess you are all right. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 49 

WHY DO BEES RAISE QUEENS. 

BY D. L. ADAIR, HAWESVILLE, KY. 

It is well known that if you remove the queen from a colony 
of bees that they very soon commence to rear another. It is also 
well known that when a hive becomes very populous, and honey 
is being gathered plentifully, that the same thing occurs. It is 
also a fact that if you take a quantity of bees, more or less, 
without a queen, from a colony, and give them eggs or young 
larvce, they will also proceed to raise queens. When a queen 
becomes old and fails to lay eggs sufficient to keep up the popu- 
lation of the hive they will do the same thing, and raise a queen 
to take her place. 

Why do the bees so act? Can we suppose that they are en- 
dowed with the knowledge of their condition ? If we do, can we 
further suppose that they know what to do to remedy the evil 
that has befallen them? If so, how do they know? Who or what 
has taught them ? We must remember that the life-time of a 
worker-bee extends over but a few weeks or months, while a 
queen lives several years, and consequently that in most instances 
when queen-cells are built and queens reared it is done by bees 
that never saw a queen-cell constructed, and are without expe- 
rience in producing perfect queens. It is as common as it is 
absurd with novices and enthusiasts in bee-culture to attribute 
great wisdom to bees. We have heard reputable bee-keej)ers 
speak of educating them ; when the truth is that they are alone 
impelled by an undeviating instinct, with no "free-will" or control 
over their actions any more than the plant or tree that is devoid 
of animal life. Their strongest instinct is the perpetuating their 
species, and when extinction is threatened they each, the bee and 
the tree, put forth efforts for reproduction. 

Every experienced horticulturist knows that a tree or plant 
whose life is threatened from injury or disease, although not of 
an age to bear fruit, is immediately forced into bloom and the 
production of seeds for continuing the species. This tendency is 
taken advantage of to produce fruitfulness in the over-luxuriant 
and consequently barren fruit-tree by mutilating its roots, or 
cutting a ring of the bark out so as to interfere with the circu- 
lation of the sap. So do experienced apiculturists know that, 
when from any cause reproduction is retarded or stopped, the 

4 



50 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

queen-cells are formed as certainly as the fruit-bud, and in the 
multiplication of queens they take advantage of it in producing 
them. This instinct is independent of will or education alto- 
gether, as is proven by the fact that no choice or discretion is 
shown; for it is a fact, as stated by Lord Brougham in his work 
on "Instinct," "that as in plants where the motions are without 
animal life, those motions are more perfect and undisturbed, so if 
there be any animal wholly without reason, the operations of 
instinct are the more regular and perfect; and in any animal 
whatever they are so in proportion as reason is dormant or 
inactive." 

Bees act now as they did in the beginning. The fossil-bee and 
its work, as it existed sixty centuries ago, does not differ from the 
bee of to-day. The comb was the same; their habits have not 
changed ; they have learned nothing. While man may have 
been a monkey then, according to Darwin, a bee was not a gnat. 
While the regularity and perfection of the bee's work are proof 
to the novice that they are endowed with reason, they prove to 
the naturalist that they are devoid of will or discretion. 

Taking this view of the matter, we must be permitted to deny 
that they comprehend their condition when queenless, or the 
necessity for rearing queens preparatory to swarming, or to super- 
sede a queen that is superannuated, and we will have to account 
for the impulse on other grounds. 

In order to do so it will be necessary to look into the hive and 
notice some of the peculiar habits of the bees. It is known to be 
true that during a period of the early life of the worker-bees 
they do not go out as gatherers of honey or pollen, but are con- 
fined to the labors inside of the hive. It is they who feed the 
larvce in the cells. Their organs are not then fitted for outside 
labor, but they are fitted, as intended, for mixing the honey and 
bee-bread and forming the pap or food to rear the grubs. It is 
more than probable that when they are old enough or sufficiently 
developed to go out into the fields for other labor they lose the 
power of doing so. Their stomachs are no longer capable of the 
partial digestion of the larval food; while young they are, and 
it is likely that they can not resist doing so. The appetite to take 
into the stomach what is not necessary to their own sustenance is 
irresistible. It is retained there until it is fit food for the embryo 
in the cell, and then is disgorged. As long as there are grubs 
to be fed they find a place to deposit it. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 51 

Now remove the queen from the colony, and consequently stop 
the depositing of eggs ; the secretion or preparation of the larval 
food goes on as before, but the bees find no place to deposit it, 
after supplying the grubs left and the hatching-eggs. It accu- 
mulates in their stomachs until they are compelled to disgorge it. 
It is placed in a cell, as before, that either has an egg or young 
larva. From being retained longer in the stomach it is more 
thoroughly digested, and perhaps is changed in character. It is 
deposited in such quantities that the larva swims in it, the cell 
has to be enlarged to contain it, and the result is a queen -cell. 

When honey is being gathered abundantly the queen is stimu- 
lated ; so that, in a hive of ordinary dimensions, she fills all of the 
cells with eggs and finds no place to deposit any more. Breeding 
has been going on rapidly and the number of young bees is great. 
When the queen checks up in laying they find themselves in the 
same condition as if they were really queenless. They generate 
more larval food than they have grubs to feed it to in the usual 
proportions, and the result is the same — queen-cells are built. 

We find in this case some phenomena to exist that do not in 
either of the other conditions that induces the construction of 
queen-cells. The queen, not finding cells in which to deposit the 
eggs that continue to develop in her ovaries, drops them about the 
hive. The nursing bees gather them up and stick them on the 
edge of the comb and form cells around them. I have seen in 
several instances queen-cells built over eggs on the bottom-board 
of the hive; and in one instance a queen-cell was matured in a 
honey-box in which there was no other brood. This condition 
of things has a singular effect on the whole colony. It becomes 
disorganized. The queen becomes restless and belligerent; her 
first impulse is to destroy the queens in the cells. The nursing 
bees cluster so closely over them that she is prevented. The hive 
becomes in some way disagreeable to the mass of the workers. 
The unity of the colony is broken up and the result is swarming. 
Why the swarming impulse should seize on them I do not now 
propose to discuss. The same wise Providence that mounts the 
seeds of the dandelion and thistle in balloons, and gives wings to 
those of the maple and ash, and at the appointed time impels 
them to leave the mother plants, has endowed the bees with the 
instinct to multiply and swarm. The natural laws by which they 
are governed may be more difficult to understand, but are as 
certain in their operations. 



52 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

Swarming has generally been accounted for on the ground that 
the hives become overstocked and crowded with bees. This does 
not account for it, for bees will swarm sometimes if hived in a 
hogshead, with plenty of room for all. On the theory here advo- 
cated the swarming under such circumstances becomes apparent. 
When a queen is so old that she fails to lay sufficient eggs, the 
nursing bees find themselves in the same condition as in the case 
of queenlessness ; or when the queen, having filled all vacant cells, 
no longer supplies the brood to consume the larval food, and the 
building of queen-cells for the same reason follows — more than 
one queen being produced to- take the old queen's place — if the 
hive is populous they will swarm sometimes. From an ignorance 
of this fact all attempts at making a non-swarming hive by giving 
extra room have resulted in failure. 

After what has been said it is unnecessary to explain why a 
quantity of bees of the proper age when taken from a hive and 
given eggs or brood will build queen-cells. It is equally unne- 
cessary to explain why old bees fail to do so. 

As further proof of the truth of the theory, I may remind the 
bee-keepers that when a queen is caught and caged, or, in Italian- 
izing, another queen is caged and placed in the hive, the bees 
will commence queen-cells. It may be laid down as a rule that 
anything happening that checks materially or stops entirely the supply 
of eggs, when there are bees in the hive of the proper age for nursing, 
has the effect to induce queen-rearing. 

I am not aware of any conditions under which queen-cells are 
built that this theory does not account for. Some of our earlier 
authors in their inability to account for every motion of the bees 
as the result of instinct, in their enthusiastic admiration have 
tried hard to prove them endowed with reason. It seems to me 
that no one who has experience enough to see that under the 
same circumstances their actions are always the same can long 
indulge in such a fiction. To attribute to them passions and 
emotions like ours is simply absurd. In all that bees do they are 
guided alone by the immutable laws of nature ; that "they have no 
power of resisting, and for that reason all they do is perfect. Under 
the same conditions the same impulse is always excited. Not so 
with reasoning beings. ~No two communities have the same habits ; 
no two governments the same laws; no two mechanics work 
alike, except as they learn from each other. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 53 

However much such authors may have done for the advance- 
ment of apiculture, their teachings in this respect are almost as 
great a clog to it as are the old superstitions of those who leave 
it #11 to luck. 

I lay it down therefore that under certain conditions bees will 
always rear queens. They are : 

1. There must be in the hive a certain proportion of young 
bees. 

2. There must be less larvas to feed than they can supply with 
food. 

3. There must be uncapped female brood or eggs. 

4. Honey and pollen must be plentiful. 

Any of those conditions wanting, no queen can be produced. 



CHEAP HIVES. 

BY D. L. ADAIR. 



It is an error to suppose that the cheapest hives are the most 
desirable. Many of the hives lately introduced present cheapness 
as one of their principal recommendations. In order to do so 
they have to be made so small that they are worthless. A hive 
with only a cubic foot of room for brood and stores, and box-room 
for fifteen or twenty pounds of surplus honey, is no hive at all ; 
yet such is the capacity of many of those lately introduced that 
have a large sale based alone on cheapness. At the present price 
of labor, unless machinery is used, even such hives can not be made 
and finished off as they should be for less than two dollars and 
fifty cents to three dollars. All that such hives are good for is to 
produce swarms. For the production of honey the old box and 
cap is preferable. Four thousand cubic inches is as little as any 
hive should contain to produce the best results ; and while such a 
hive will not cost double as much as the former, it will produce 
eight or ten times the clear profits, besides avoiding the trouble 
that the perpetual swarmer involves. 

It is folly to suppose that one hundred pounds of honey can 
be stored where there is only room for twenty, or that twenty 



54 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

thousand bees in a disorganized condition, that are kept most 
of the time in the feverish excitement of swarming, with several 
thousand drones to be fed, can produce as much as one hundred 
thousand perfectly organized with nothing to interfere with their 
operations. Ten hives of the proper size and construction, costing 
fifty or sixty dollars, will produce more honey than one hundred 
of the so-called cheap hives, that will cost two hundred and fifty 
to three hundred dollars; while the bee-keej)er can manage one 
hundred of the former with as little trouble as fifty of the latter. 



EDUCATING BEES. 

BY D. L. ADAIR. 

In nothing the bees do can we perceive anything that indicates 
the workings of reason, or even the sagacity of higher animals 
that are capable of imitating, and through that instinct can be 
taught to do things that they do not comprehend. 

We see a certain thing done which we know they have never 
seen done before, and without any instruction, which we know 
man could not do without much instruction and a long practice- 
We see them repeat the same work, but it is always under the 
same circumstances, and they always do it in the same manner ; 
everything is made exactly alike and of the same material ; 
whereas no two men work alike, nor any one man twice alike. 
They do a thing that is to produce a certain effect, and at a time 
when it is absolutely necessary that they should do it, without any 
experience, and without even knowing what they are doing, why 
they are doing it, or what will be the result. 

In proof of this, take a sheet of brood that is just ready to 
emerge from the cells. Brush every bee off, place it in a hive 
where it will not chill, and let the bees come out. A sheet ten 
inches square will produce five thousand. Not one of these bees 
ever saw an egg, nor a queen, nor a grub, nor a queen-cell. Now 
give them a piece of comb containing eggs. As the grubs hatch 
out those bees that never saw a grub before take the honey and 
pollen, prepare it fit for the tender larvae. They feed them just the 
quantity they need, and just at the time they need it, neither 
more nor less, nor sooner nor later. From the most of them they 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 55 

rear workers like themselves; from others perhaps drones are 
produced. 

This is truly wonderful ; but more wonderful still these bees 
that have never seen their mother, and have had no means of 
being informed of the necessity of a queen to continue the race, 
set to work and construct cells different from any before in the 
hive ; different from any they have ever seen before. The larvce 
over and around which they build them are furnished with food 
in greater quantities and, it may be, different in quality. It is 
at least more thoroughly digested or prepared, as we may infer 
from the fact that the larvae fed on it mature more rapidly. 

All of this work is evidently done blindly, and positively 
without knowledge or instruction ; intending nothing, meaning 
nothing, and not designing to do what it accomplishes. The 
result is the production of a description of bees unknown to 
them before, so different from all in the hive that they have no 
instincts common with them. 

In like manner we might follow the bees in all they do without 
finding any proof that they have the least glimmer of reason, or 
that they are capable of departing in the smallest degree from the 
blind impulses of their unvarying instinct. 



THE SIZE OF BEES AND THEIR CELLS. 

BY D. L. ADAIR, HAWESVILLE, KY. 

The cell of the honey-comb has been a wonder on account 
of its shape, but I have seen no reason given why it is always 
about a certain size. This fact, I conceive, is no less a subject 
of wonder than that, and is of an easy solution, determined as it 
is by plain physical laws. 

A friend who lives some ten miles distant, having heard that I 
had the Italian bees, rode over one day to see them. His curiosity 
had been greatly excited by what he had heard about them. He 
had hardly dismounted before he let me know his errand. 

"Well," said he, "I understand that you have a new breed of 
bees, as big as bumble-bees, that make comb with cells in it as 
big as a thimble, that have no stings, and make honey all the 



56 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

year round. I came over to-day to get some, as I understand that 
one or two is all you need to get a start." 

I informed him that he was slightly mistaken, that I had no 
such bees, and that no such bees existed; that I had the Italian 
bees that were a little larger than some common bees, but that I 
had the common bees as large as the Italian; that they had stings, 
but had the reputation of using them with more discretion than 
tbe common bees; that as to their making honey "all the year 
round," they did not make honey at all, but gathered it from 
flowers, as all other bees did, and whenever flowers failed to 
secrete honey they must stop storing it. 

"My dear sir," he replied, "you are not posted; for Mr'. A 

told me that he saw them at E"ewburg." 

Now I had acquired some reputation for bee knowledge, how- 
ever undeservedly, and to save it with my friend I had to maintain 
my position in this wise : 

"All the habits and instincts of the bee would have to be 
changed if it grew to such a size. The comb would have to be 
built differently. Instead of hanging it in sheets in the hive 
vertically, with horizontal cells on either side, it would have to 
be in sheets horizontally, with cells only on the upper side ; for 
if the cells were as large as a lady's thimble, or even a very little 
larger than they now are, the honey would run out of them as 
fast as it was put in. The cells in which the worker-bees are 
reared are about one fifth of an inch in diameter; the cells which 
are built for storing honey alone are a very little larger, fourteen 
measuring three inches 7 ; and that seems to be about the maximum 
size of cells that can be placed in a horizontal position and retain 
the honey when placed in them. The drone-cells are about one 
fourth of an inch in diameter, and .when used for storing honey 
in have to be turned up from a horizontal position, sometimes as 
much as 30°, in order to hold it." 

"All that seems reasonable," he admitted; "but why should it 
be so ? Could not this big bee make the honey stay in the big 
cell as well as the little bee in the little cell? Each would be in 
proportion." 

"Nature does not permit miracles now-a-days," I answered. 
"Every substance exists as such by reason of certain essential 
properties or qualities. Destroy any one of those belonging to 
any one substance and you destroy the substance itself. Among 
the properties common to all substances is one called attraction. 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 57 

which is an inclination in bodies and particles of substances to 
tend toward each other. This property pervades all material 
things. Destroy it and you resolve creation into chaos again. 
It not only causes atoms to adhere together and form different 
substances or bodies, but holds them all together in a great body 
we call the earth, and holds all the heavenly bodies in their 
spheres as they revolve through space. 

"Attraction of cohesion is the name given to that force which 
holds together particles in bodies or masses; and it is through an 
instructive knowledge of this much philosophy that the bee is 
enabled to stow the honey in the vessel it makes for it." 

"I can not see it," he said. 

"How long would it take you to fill a barrel with molasses or 
water if you should lay it on its side and remove one head?" I 
asked him. 

" That would certainly be a fool's job," he answered. " I would 
greatly prefer the performance of eating soup with a fork." 

"Yet your big bee that should build its cell as large as a 
thimble would have the same sort of a fool's job before it when it 
undertook to fill it with honey." 

"But why won't it run out of the small cell as well as the large 
one, or as the molasses out of the barrel?" 

"That's what I'm coming to. Dip your finger into honey and 
hold it up with the end down, and you will soon see that the 
honey will run down as impelled by gravitation, and collect in 
a globular drop at the lowest point. That drop or globule will 
increase until it attains a certain size, when it will fall off. If you 
measure the diameter of the drop of honey, you will find it to be 
about the same as the worker-cell." 

"I can not see," interposed my friend, "what connection there 
is between the honey dropping from the end of your finger and 
the size of bees, or even their cells." 

" I will try to explain if you will be patient. The size of the 
drop indicates the cohesive force with which the particles of 
honey are held together; when another kind of attraction, called 
gravitation, is brought to bear on it." 

" The same that Sir Isaac Newton, I think it was," he put in, 
"got up to gather apples with." 

"The force had always existed, but Newton was the first to 
discover and define its operations. If the drop only attained a 
certain size it would remain suspended; the force of cohesion 



58 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

would be greater than gravitation ; but other particles added give 
the latter the advantage, and consequently the drop falls, as did 
Newton's apple. The honey is held in the cells by this very 
attraction of cohesion, and consequently the cells have to conform 
in size to the drop of honey, or the other attraction, gravitation, 
would cause the honey to run out." 

"Ah! I see now what you are driving at," exclaimed he, 
"and consequently the bee can not be any larger than the cells, 
as it has to go into them to put its honey in and to get it out. 
If it were otherwise the bees would be in as bad a fix as the fox 
JEsop tells about, who went to dine with the crane, and had 
minced meat served in a bottle." 

" That is one reason, but not the principal one. The queen lays 
her eggs in the bottom of the cells, where they hatch, are fed by 
the nursing bees, undergo the different transformations, and emerge 
full size. Of course they can be no larger then the cells in which 
they were reared. This is so true that drones which are sometimes 
reared in worker-cells are no larger than worker -bees, and I have 
known workers reared in cells built so near the sides of the hive 
that they could not be made of full depth, that were but little 
larger than house-flies." 

"So," said my friend, "the cell is a sort of Procrustean bed, and 
those that occupy it must be made to fit it. I think I will go 
home and quit hunting bumble-bees." 

"Stop awhile till I give you another idea in this connection. 
Does not this also explain the shape and arrangement of the 
cells ? A great deal has been said and written to explain why the 
bees build their cells with such wonderful uniformity of angle 
and such remarkable economy of space. Many solutions have 
been proposed, but none of them is entirely satisfactory. Another 
law of attraction is 'that when particles of fluids are left free to 
arrange themselves according to the law of attraction they assume 
the form of a globe or ball.' For instance, the drop of honey just 
spoken of, the dew-drops on the leaves of plants, tears running 
down the cheek, and drops of rain ; shot are made by dropping 
the lead in a molten or liquid state from high towers ; as soon as 
free each separate mass or drop assumes a globular form, and, 
cooling before it finishes its descent, forms a shot. 

" Now the cells being constructed primarily for the purpose 
of holding honey, it is but natural to suppose that they would 
conform in shape, as near as possible, as well as in size to the 



ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 59 

substance which they are intended to contain ; therefore they 
would be circular ; but when we come to set them together we 
find that they will not fit each other, and that there is a great 
loss of space. If that space is filled with wax, there is a loss 
of material ; so nature, always economical, adopts the only shape 
that will answer the purpose for which they were intended ; and, 
constructing all the walls and partitions of an equal thickness) 
the thing is done without requiring the bees to work out a difficult 
mathematical problem. There is no other shape except a triangle 
or a square that could be adopted, and they would neither suit the 
form of the maturing bees nor be of such a shape as to take advan- 
tage of the law of cohesion in retaining the honey. The hexagon 
varies so slightly from a circle that it is substantially the same. 



A great fault with most authors writing of the bee is that 
they but repeat what others have said without having observed 
for themselves. In this way some of the most fatal errors have 
been thoughtlessly taught by repeated repetition. 

It has been repeated so often that a circulation of air through 
the hive is necessary, that nine tenths of the bee-keepers persist 
in keeping a draught through it, when the truth is that the only 
openings should be at the entrance. 

We are also repeatedly told that bees can not use as food 
candied or crystallized honey, when the truth is that they can 
eat even rock-candy if they have the proper degree of moisture 
in the hive. 

A strong colony of bees has been known to build one hundred 
square inches of comb in twenty-four hours; at that rate over 
sixty sheets of comb a foot square could be constructed in three 
months. The editor of the Annals of Bee Culture has had a 
report of a swarm that built nine sheets of comb ten by thirteen 
inches in ten days. 

A large natural swarm of bees carries with it four or five 
pounds of honey when leaving the old hive. 

"Wildman says : "There seems to be a hidden quality in some 
men which renders them disagreeable to the bees." 



60 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



PERFECTION IN BEE CULTURE. 

There is no owner of half a dozen colonies of bees that has 
not had the opportunity to notice that frequently there will be 
a single colony that will far excel in yield of honey any of the 
others. They may be all in hives as near alike in size and 
construction as possible ; they may be all managed as near alike 
as the bee-keeper knows how; yet one will distinguish itself by 
heaping up unheard-of-before quantities of honey. 

Such a result must have a cause, or perhaps a number of co- 
incident causes. To ascertain these causes is the province of the 
scientific apiculturist. 

The fact that an apiary of one hundred colonies produces an 
average of one hundred pounds of honey is of little value, and 
teaches nothing unless we are informed of how it was managed. 
That one tenth of the hives produced only an average of ten 
pounds each, and another tenth produced an average of two 
hundred pounds each, should lead us to try and answer the 
question : "Why do not all produce the maximum? " 

We have instances reported where five hundred and even seven 
hundred pounds of honey have been secured from a single colony. 
What it is possible for one colony to do is possible for all ; and 
until the bee-keeper shall be able to so understand and control 
the operations of his bees that he can bring them all up to the 
highest standard of productiveness, the science of bee culture will 
be imperfect. D. L. Adair. 



Mr. L. 0. Waite writes to the editor of the Annals of Bee 
Culture, as follows : 

"Advise bee-keepers to feed rye-meal when pollen and honey 
can not be gathered, and to give plenty of water ; and if a very 
dry season to feed honey and water by putting it in a fruit-can. 
with coarse cloth tied over top and hung up inverted near apiary. 
and the bees will keep away from decayed fruit. I succeeded in 
keeping my bees at home last August and September, and saved 
thousands of them by so doing." 

Bees will make more wax when fed on sugar-syrup than when 
fed on honey, and will winter better on it. 



ANNALS OP BEE CULTURE. 61 



EDITORIAL SCRAPS. 

Five pounds of sugar fed to a colony of bees in March and 
April will secure the return of fifty pounds of honey in June. 
There are more bees lost by starvation in early spring than from 
all other causes during the winter. As soon as the first food is 
carried into the hive in spring the queen commences to lay her 
eggs ; an unfavorable change in the weather cutting off the supph' 
of food endangers the life of the whole colony. They should be 
fed to prevent this, and also to stimulate the queen as much as 
possible, so that they may be strong when honey becomes plentiful 
enough to gather a surplus. 

The ovaries of the queen-bee contain the germs of about half 
a million of eggs, and when they are exhausted the queen dies. 
A prolific qUeen will lay them all in two years, while others take 
five or six years to accomplish it. The latter are unprofitable and 
should be destroyed. A queen that is stimulated to lay to her 
utmost capacity during the first month of her laying will be 
prolific all her life; while one that is so situated or treated that 
she lays little or none during that time will likely be unprolific 
as long as she lives, and will live a long time. 

Among other errors that have been stated and restated until it 
passes for truth, is the assertion that bees never voluntarily sting 
when filled with honey, and that bees when alarmed will fill 
themselves with honey, which renders them peaceable ; or that 
the reason why bees are not so apt to sting when they swarm is 
because they are all filled with honey; for a hungry swarm that 
deserts its hive because they have no honey is as well disposed as 
that which issues from the richest hive. 

Bees require to be managed differently in different localities, 
dej^ending on the honey -producing plants. Over large districts 
the honey-season is over by the last .of July, while in other 
localities the best honey-season is after the first of September. 
Where honey abounds the whole season through is the bee- 
keeper's paradise. 

It is a bad plan for a novice to buy a large stock of bees to 
commence with. Get a few, and increase them as your knowledge 
and skill increases. 



62 ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 

Whenever a queen becomes unproductive she should be de- 
stroyed, and one that is young and prolific put in her place, 
whether that unproductiveness arises from old age or other 
causes. It is poor economy to keep a queen that will only keep 
up the population of the hive to a living point when it is so easy 
to supply a better one that will yield a surplus of honey. 

When bees are gathering honey rapidly they frequently crowd 
the brood-nest of the queen so as to restrict her laying. They 
should be examined often, and any honey so improperly placed 
should be removed by the melipult, and empty frames placed in 
the center of the hive to be filled with new comb, which is always 
preferred for brooding by the queen. 

Some authorities state that the queen and drones never feed 
themselves. This is an error, as I have frequently witnessed. 
The queen does not feed herself when she is laying eggs rapidly, 
as her digestive organs are insufficient to digest the material for 
the great number of eggs she produces. The worker-bees feed 
her on prepared food, which they digest for her. 

Mr. A. F. Moor, of Michigan, now editor of the North American 
Bee Journal, stated at the meeting of the North American Bee- 
keepers' Society at Cleveland that he knew an instance in which 
bees swarmed in the night. 

Mr. J. W. Hosmer, of Janesville, Minn., extracted twelve 
thousand pounds of honey (six tons) in two weeks from one 
hundred colonies of bees. He had one colony that gathered 
fifty -three pounds of linden-honey in one day. 

All that bees do is susceptible of explanation without going 
to the extremes either of considering the insect as a mere 
machine, or endowing it with intellectual faculties like the higher 
order of creatures. 

To know what to do, how to do it, and to do it at the right 
time, is the great secret of success in bee-keeping as well as in 
every other calling. Ignorance, awkwardness, and untimely work 
are sure not to succeed. 

Gentleness and a little smoke is the best bee-charm. 

The golden rule in bee-keeping : Keep your colonies strong. 



THE ANNALS OF BEE CULTURE. 



CONTENTS FOR 1869. 

The Bee Moth. By A. S. Packard, jr., M. D 1 

The Mel-extractor. By D. L. Adair 4 

General Contention oe German Bee-keepers at Darmstadt 9 

Transferring. By D. L. Adair 12 

Protection against Bee-stings 15 

Overstocking. By E. Gallup 16 

Multiplication of Stocks. By D. L. Adair 17 

Feeding Bees. By Edward Harrison 26 

Pacts 27 

What amount oe Honey is it possible eor one Colony to produce 

in one Season? By D. L. Adair 28 

The Italian Honey-bee. Ay Elisha Gallup 31 

Improved Bee-keeping By W. W. Cary 32 

Hen-eggs as Bee Pood 33 

To secure Straight Comb 33 

The Bee Cholera of 1868. By D. L. Adair , 34 

Commence with few Bees 39 

Bee Culture in Canada. By J. H. Thomas 40 

Who should keep Bees 42 

eubbing hlyes with peach-leaves 43 

Keeping Bees in Towns 44 

Bells for settling Bees 44 

The use of Smoke in Taming Bees. By E. Gallup 45 

Drone Mothers 46 

The Queen-catcher. By Dr. Jewell Davis 47 

Honey Yinegar 49 

Water and Ventilation. By D. L.Adair 50 

The Unity of the Hive 52 

Eaising Queens in Nuclei 53 

Varieties of Bees 57 



CONTENTS FOR 1870. 

Principles of Bee-breeding. By Vogel. Translated by Sam'l Wagner, 1 
Value of Honey-Bees in Agriculture. By A. S. Packard, jr., M. D. 8 

Bee-keeping for Pleasure and Profit. By "Novice." 10 

Agricultural Progress. By Elisha Gallup 15 



64 CONTENTS. 

Systematic Bee-keeping. By Prof. A. J. Cook 16 

Plain "Words to an Amateur. By Rev. E. Yan Slyke 18 

Indoor v. Outdoor Wintering. By E. Kretchmer 21 

Progress in Forty Years. By M. Quimby 24 

Women as Bee-keepers. By Mrs. E. S. Tupper 26 

The Bee Moth. By Mrs. Tupper 28 

Advice to Beginners. By E. Gallup 29 

Artificial Swarming. By J. H. Thomas SO 

Renewing Comb. By Gallup; 34 

Heavy v. Light Stocks. By L. C. Francis 34 

A Glance at European Bee Culture. By Chas. Dadant 36 

Source of Wax, Pollen, Propolis. By D. L. Adair 33 

Honey Boxes. By E. Gallup 42 

Dividing Natural Swarms. By D. L. Adair 43 

Alsike Clover. By J. H. Townley 45 

Artificial Swarming. By Dr. Jewell Davis 48 

Meeting of German Bee-keepers at Nuremberg. Translated by 

C. P. Dadant 49 

Two Methods of Bee-keeping. By Rev. H. A. King 57 

The Queen Nursery. By Dr. Jewell Davis 59 

Adair's Mel-extractor 61 

Peabody's Honey Extractor 63 



CONTENTS FOR 1872. 

The Genesis of the Honey-bee. By D. L. Adair 7 

Fertilizing Queens in Confinement. By Mrs. E .S. Tupper 1 

The Egyptian Bee. By M. Balsamo Crivelli 8 

A few Hints and Experiences. By Rev. W. F. Clarke 14 

Apiculture in Agricultural Colleges. By Prof. A. J. Cook 17 

Parthenogenesis in Bees. By A. S. Packard, jr., M. D 19 

Artificial Comb. By M. Quimby 22 

The South as a Bee Country. By S.W.Cole 24 

The Laboratory in the Bee-hive. By D. L. Adair 26 

Does a Queen sting her Royal Rival. By Mrs. Tupper 34 

What are the most desirable Improvements in Bee Culture ? By 

Chas. Dadant 35 

Cultivation of Trees and Plants for Honey. By "Novice."'..... 38 

Work for our Conventions. By Dr. E. Parmly 41 

The Essentials of Bee-keeping. By Dr. Jewell Davis 43 

Why newly-hived Swarms Desert. By E. Gallup 46 

Why do Bees raise Queens. By D. L. Adair 49 

Cheap Hives. By D. L. Adair 53 

Educating Bees. By D. L. Adair 54 

The size of Bees and their Cells. By D. L. Adair 55 

Perfection in Bee Culture 60 

Editorial Scraps 61 



The North American Bee Journal, 

PUBLISHED MONTHLY AT 

INDIANAPOLIS, IND., and FRANKLIN, KY. 

Teems, $2.00 a Year, in advance, with Liberal Discount to Clubs. 

We intend to publish a journal liberal, fair, and impartial, our sole aim 
being the advancement of the science of Bee Culture. 

For sample copy and club terms, address ; ' NORTH AMERICAN BEE 
JOURNAL," either at Indianapolis, Ind., or Franklin, Ky. 



For PURE and PROLIFIC QUEENS and API- 
ARIAN SUPPLIES in general, send to 

OWEN <fc LADD, 

BRENTWOOD, WILLIAMSON CO., TENN. 

(NEAR NASHVILLE.) 

Full colonies of Bees in the Adair or any style of improved Hive, Honey 
Extractor, Queen Cages, Bee Vails, Bee Books, or anything needed about the 
Apiary furnished at the shortest notice and at reasonable prices. SATIS- 
FACTION GUARANTEED. 

Send for our circular, containing much information to the Bee-keeper. 
Sent free. Correspondence on the subject of Bee Culture solicited, and 
promptly attended to. Descriptive circular of any leading improved Hive 
sent for stamp. 

Tb AHCUOTBIST and FLOEAL GUIDE, 

Published on the 15th of every Month by W. G. Church, Mexico, Mo. 

With the commencement of the third volume (May number) of the 
Apiculturist a Floral Department will be added, and the name changed as 
above. The form will also be changed, and it will hereafter contain sixteen 
large three-column pages, printed on fine tinted book paper, and beautifully 
illustrated. 

We make this change at the solicitation of many friends, who think that 
bees and flowers are so closely connected that they should both engage the 
attention of one periodical. We desire to say to our bee-keeping friends 
that our interest in bee culture will not be diminished by this change ; but, as 
heretofore, our entire time will be given to that department. 

The Floral Department will be under the supervision of an eminent flor- 
ist, who will be ably assisted by numerous correspondents. 

Altogether we hope to make our journal much more acceptable to all 
than it has ever been; and although by the change the expense of publica- 
tion will be largely increased, yet single subscriptions will remain the same, 
with very liberal inducements to clubs. 

Terms, in advance, single copy one year, $1.00; two copies, one year, 
$1.75; four copies, one year, $3.00; ten copies, one year, $6.00. 

Address W. 6. CHURCH, Mexico, Mo. 



NOVICE'S IMPROVEMENT 

IN 

Frames for Movable Comb Hives. 

In using Movable Comb Bee-hives, two principal difficulties have presented themselves 
winch we propose to obviate by the accompanying invention. 

First — In opening all hives the o]:>eration of prying the Combs loose before removing 
them is always attended (especially in hives the bees have occupied several seasons) with 
more or less "annoyance to both bees and operator, as the bees, disliking any jar or shake, 
are much more likely to resent the loosening process than the removal "of the frames 
themselves. In replacing the frames also extreme care must be taken that the ends of 
the frames, when replaced in the rabbets in the side of the hive, be not allowed to crush 
any bees, as they are very quick to resent any such carelessness. 

"Secondly — Movable frames as they are commonly made, with nails, are not secure : so 
that oftentimes, when the bees are' shaken off preparatory to extracting the honey, the 
nails draw out, and bees, honey, brood, and possibly the queen, at her imminent peril, are 
rolling in the dirt. In case the frame does not break, a racking of the corners is almost 
sure to cause the heavily-filled comb to break and drop out as before. 

Our Improvements are : First — Instead of the top bar being prolonged for the sup- 
port of the frame, thin metal projections at the upper corners are made to rest on a strip 
of metal placed with edge upward in the rabbet in the hive, thus supporting the frame in 
such a way that the bees find it impossible to glue them fast with propolis, as they do the 
wooden bars, and also that they may not be crushed in replacing the frame in the hive. 

Secondly — The thin metal projections are made of a piece of sheet metal, formed by 
machinery, in such a way that the corners of the frames are held perfectly secure at ah 
exact right angle, braced and strengthened more than nails or rabbeting can possibly 
make them, and ferruled, as it were, so the wood can not split. 

Thirdly — The manner of attaching the device is such that they can be applied to almost 
any movable comb frame, even when filled with corah and covered with bees; and the corners 
are so secure, when once attached, that removal is almost impossible. 

Fourthly — A stronger frame can be made of strips of pine % of an inch wide, and only 
% in thickness, than those commonly used. 

A sample pair to test them on one frame sent by mail on receipt of 10 cents. Corners 
and supporters for top of frame. $1.25 per 100. Bottom corners, 75 cents per 100. 

NOVICE'S HONEY KNIFE 

Is made of fine steel and tempered, sharp on both edges, and has a neat and finely-finished 
handle. Price by mail, $1.25 ; by express, $1 ; or for half a dozen, $5. As they are rather 
heavy they had better be expressed ; and by neighbors sending together for half a dozen 
the expense is but little. Liberal rates to dealers by the quantity. We can also furnish 
Peabody's Melextractors at his prices. 

Orders may be sent here, or to B. H. Stair & Co., 115 Ontario Street, Cleveland, Ohio. 

Address A. I. ROOT & CO., Medina. Ohio. 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 

This periodical is unconnected with the ownership of any patent rights relating to bee 
culture, and therefore admits into its columns the fullest 'and freest discussion" of the 
merits and demerits of the various systems from time to time presented to apiarians. 
It has for contributors to its columns the best, most experienced and successful apiarians 
in this country ; and from time to time will furnish the translations of interesting articles 
from the various German Bee periodicals, and from the journals also of other countries. 
Its aim is to develop bee culture in this country, and hence will not be the advocate of any 
one theory or system of bee culture. 

Published monthly at Washington, D. C. Terms, $2 per annum. Volume commences 
with the July number. GEO. S. WAGNER, Washington, D. C. 



The Bee-Keeper's Journal and National Agriculturist. 

On Trial, Three Months for Ten Cents? or 15 Months and best Bee 

Book, German or English for $1. Splendid Pre- 
miums for 1872. Movable Comb Hives, Italian 
Bees, etc . for sale. Fifty per cent, and great in- 
ducements to Agents. 

Sample of Journal, Hints to Bee-Keepers,' 
a thirty-six page pamphlet. Price List. etc.. sent 
free or for stamp. Write now. and not forget it. 

Address H. A. KING A CO.. 

14 Murray St.. New York. 




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